History Making and Present Day Politics - Stolten's African Studies ...

H i s t o r y i n t h e n e w S o u t h A f r i c a
collective memory and history is not simply a product of the past, but often
an answer to demands of the present.
During segregation and apartheid, historical research was used extensively
to seek solutions for problems of contemporary importance. Most of the great
debates on South African history have had hidden agendas mirroring vital
contemporary problems rather than the ones actually described. The discussion
around the frontier theory outlining the self-identification of the Boers
on the isolated border, the formulation by early liberals of “protective” segregation,
the later liberal critique of dysfunctional elements in the apartheid
policy, and the construction of a working class tradition by radical historians
provide illustrative examples of history used for ideological mobilisation by
some of the most distinguished South African and international scholars.
How was the idea of a South African nation constructed? In what ways
have racialised identities been ascribed to South Africans over time? From
what concepts did the various schools of history assign different pasts to
different South Africans? Can history help people regain their pride or give
them back their land? Should understanding, critique, or guidance for action
be prioritised in the practice of history?
This collection will deal with different patterns of use and abuse of history
during the formation of group identity and national unity. The importance
of history and historians for the transformation of the South African society
will be discussed from several different angles.
In August 2002, The Nordic Africa Institute convened an extended workshop
of historians, Africanists and development researchers at the Centre of
African Studies, the University of Copenhagen. This Danish institute, situated
in the old inner city, functioned as an efficient co-organiser of the event
that gathered more than fifty participants under the heading: Collective
Memory and Present Day Politics in South Africa and the Nordic Countries.
The NAI/CAS workshop provided for an exchange of views between veteran
historians involved in the international debate over many years, historians
from the new South Africa, and concerned Nordic researchers, as well as
. Hofstadter, Richard, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington, New
York, 1969, p. 3; Kader Asmal, “Speech by the Minister of Education”, Department
of Education, August 2001.
. Beinart, William and Dubow, Saul, “The historiography of segregation and apartheid”
in Beinart and Dubow (eds), Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century
South Africa, New York, Routledge, 1995.