The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

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POSTSCRIPT BIOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATION AND HISTORICAL PRACTICE In the first ten years of democracy in South Africa, for a number of scholars, the terrain of historical practice has undergone a number of important shifts. While some historians have held on to firm ideas of knowledge hierarchies between the domains of history and heritage, and notions of heritage as inferior, 1 significant processes of historical production and contestation have occurred in various sites and institutions outside the academy. In spite of the unwillingness of some historians to enter the domain of heritage, with its “tainting atmosphere”, 2 a number of scholars have embraced these transformations and have sought to extend their historical practice into a range of sites and institutions as the field of public history became more layered and multifarious. In some cases, this took place on the basis of historians’ academic and disciplinary ‘expertise’ as researchers and educators. But in many instances, academics who had entered the domain of public history found that they had to relinquish any notion of academics as experts, as museums and heritage bodies cultivated spaces of critical public scholarship and research excellence in their own terms. 3 I myself was drawn into a range of exciting and challenging institutions of public history in a number of ways: as expert, policy maker, advisor and public scholar. I was appointed by the Cabinet of the South African government to the Council of SAHRA when it came into existence in 2000 as the official national heritage body which developed policies and standards for conserving the ‘national estate’, comprising 1 See for example Jane Carruthers, ‘Heritage and History’. 2 Leslie Witz and Ciraj Rassool, ‘The Dog, the Rabbit and the Reluctant Historians’, South African Historical Journal, No. 27, November 1992. 3 See my discussion of these relations and tensions in ‘Community museums, memory politics and social transformation’. 502
heritage sites and collections. I was also invited to serve on the board of an independent archival NGO, the South African History Archive, which had its roots in an independent liberation archive in Zimbabwe in the 1980s. I also became a member of the Board of SAHO, which sought to develop online heritage resources in the history of liberation and in political biography, including a wall of remembrance. Most significantly, in 1995, I was invited to become a trustee of the District Six Museum, which developed as an independent site of public scholarship, a hybrid space of research, representation and pedagogy, through which relations of knowledge and varied kinds of intellectual and cultural practice were brokered and mediated between different sites, institutions and sociological domains. As an instance of such knowledge transactions, in 1999 and 2000, I participated in a team of curators, artists and researchers that created the new permanent exhibition, Digging Deeper, a much more reflexive exhibition that sought more challenging ways of representing District Six’s pasts. In addition, as a historian at UWC in the 1990s, I found myself drawn into various projects and activities of the Mayibuye Centre, into some of the discussions and strategies in the mid‐1990s that led to the formulation of the proposal to turn Robben Island into a national museum, and into the policy discussions that led to the granting of the collections of the Mayibuye Centre to the Robben Island Museum on long loan. In the later 1990s and early 2000s, I was also drawn into some of the formal operations of the Robben Island Museum, as a member of the Working Committee comprising RIM and UWC staff that managed operational aspects and project work of the renamed UWC RIM Mayibuye Archive. I also acted as occasional advisor to its Heritage and Education Departments, and worked with RIM staff in an educational partnership that UWC had developed with them and UCT on a programme in Museum and Heritage Studies. 503
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The Individual, Auto/biography and
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation
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committee members selected me to ta
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements
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Authorship, individuation and the b
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ABBREVIATIONS AAC All‐African Con
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INTRODUCTION The research for this
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transformation in the Eastern Cape?
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South African society provided the
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manifest dishonesty. Through a case
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genealogy of biographic mediation w
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tribute to Tabata that Taylor const
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CHAPTER ONE AUTO/BIOGRAPHY, NARRATI
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self‐constitution and the “styl
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intercourse entailed in this metaph
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1930s, with decreasing institutiona
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psychological characteristics” wh
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entextualised in diverse ways”, c
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While all mankind may be the subjec
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life’ and career as the focus hav
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development, a “narrative of inte
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denies the centrality of the subjec
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story, creating a ‘transferential
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een backward‐looking. Their commu
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[w]e need to attend to the historic
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enacted, lived in particular conjun
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‘representivity’ would constitu
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through particular enunciative stra
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ones. 114 Modernity gave rise to li
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These, in turn, have a profound eff
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are also to be found in the ‘stor
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historian, personal and political,
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sites of the ‘memorial complex’
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These biographies of ‘great polit
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der Post family. 17 Even Bertolt Br
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While the limitations of Jones’ b
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and work had emphasised the serious
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accused Mother Teresa of promulgati
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Mother Teresa, “hoping some of he
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sainthood”, the amount of miracle
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This biographic world of saint vene
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dared to be that person”. She “
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and popular circuits of exchange an
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institutions that make up the exhib
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participation in annual heroic comm
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Biographic memorial productions hav
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myths, while radio and television p
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the monument was removed during the
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about the past, as “political eli
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suggesting that use was merely made
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and “The Annual Salute to Greatne
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the use of his image”. 106 Moreov
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In this radical biographic interpre
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In addition to this standard biogra
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National Civil Rights Museum in Mem
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Although Mao’s image had been use
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more varied … [and] far more exci
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esistance hero in general, of hope
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issues about image‐making and aut
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Lumumba who could stand in oppositi
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CHAPTER THREE RESISTANCE STUDIES AN
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in “a wide range of inventive pol
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marginalised, grassroots people [an
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Since the 1970s, the terrain of res
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In an obvious sense, these studies
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Under the conditions of deepening r
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Crucially, this feature found expre
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established through his professiona
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scepticism, 35 the use of this noti
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“glimpse into the inner mind of o
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Higgs and Steven Gish also followed
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understand the background, politica
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national and land questions” conc
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Higgs’ study was largely a chrono
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South Africans to protest against t
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In these traditional ‘masculinist
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1980s in South African scholarship,
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academic institutions involved in t
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struggles over municipal controls d
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that during the 1950s, a period see
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away from biographic images of cons
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orthography with “self‐appointe
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middle section had vacillated. Anot
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Biography has also been a vehicle f
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After collecting oral testimony fro
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and ‘jumping the fence’ led to
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whose value depended on their accur
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(probably Nkadimeng) in a resettlem
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determine the voice and style in wh
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memory into a written academic prod
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Biography for social history was a
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esistance history sought to provide
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and La Hausse were completed by sch
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consciousness, conversations, and/o
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A foray into biography in the work
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ceased to be the major site for the
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study did not go far enough in the
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continued political role”. It was
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In exploring these issues of image,
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While Clingman’s study has posed
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state they contested”, as the col
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focusing on the creation of systems
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and survival against the onslaught
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and reconciliation in South Africa.
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accustomed to clear hierarchies bet
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South African public history. This
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unifier and a liberator of the mind
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these ways, the Mayibuye Centre was
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together, these booklets attempted
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Biography also provided the basis o
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As part of these transformations, M
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leader, Bill Andrews. 58 Written fr
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It is this biographic impetus which
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the post‐apartheid present, and t
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Ngcelwane, whose family had had bee
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of softnesses and roughnesses” of
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extended to other arenas of public
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These images of the Business Day re
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once stood in central Pretoria, was
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declared a national monument on 12
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University’s Mark Haywood felt th
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Ministry of Water Affairs and Fores
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to the present. This project would
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was missed to develop a complex her
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contemplation and celebration were
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Morris Isaacson High School, Regina
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The Museum was really inaugurated,
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through biographic presentation. Bu
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2003. Thabo Mbeki expressed the poi
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In contrast, Ronnie Kasrils, Modise
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narratives and moral trajectories o
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visual terms as part of a president
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especially one who had been a long
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applications had to make a biograph
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In April 2003, the Nelson Mandela F
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ooklet was organised as a chronolog
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single sitting”. 191 However, it
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In 1999, Anthony Sampson, who had b
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eating breakfast and even shaving a
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(Mandela’s birth place), on the b
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“triumph of the human spirit”,
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sought to contest the tendency for
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deepening in Robben Island’s cult
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follow the advice of Anthony Sampso
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was asked to speak about the accuse
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new conditions of exile was the con
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importance of relations of cultural
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construction of Nelson Mandela has
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iography in public and commercial s
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artist, Jacob Khumalo, who had exhi
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epresentatives on the Nelson Mandel
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eliance, self‐respect and self‐
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PART TWO BEYOND MODERNIST HISTORY:
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marginality. Among the materials in
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Gradually, in drips and drabs, the
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While Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape
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for the field of political biograph
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microfilm collection contained a su
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and Karis may have received from Ta
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and reserve dwellers, arguing that
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Indeed, in this genealogy, the most
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and was conducted as part of a wide
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In making these assessments, Hirson
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policy that had envisaged redivided
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formation of APDUSA in January 1961
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“effectively … smashed within t
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opportunities that presented themse
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and verbal performances, which have
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political leadership was exercised
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CHAPTER SIX FROM COLLECTIVE LEADERS
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special protest meetings in convene
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upture was coming to a head, when h
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principles”. 18 Another aspect of
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included on the back cover of such
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political training did not take pla
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pertinent to the themes of this cha
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cause, rather than the leader”. T
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341
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343
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345
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347
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asic passport‐type pen picture sa
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their prominent placement in public
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353
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of individualised leadership may ha
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political positions which rejected
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interesting that Taylor’s first w
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handwriting, which had been prepare
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ehabilitation. 96 This did not stop
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ooted in the past”, he suggested,
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During 1949 and 1950, amid mounting
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“colour and strength” were impo
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Elsewhere on the left, Tabata’s b
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occurred in which Tabata was subjec
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Tabata, as an individual, bore a po
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making them “more careful about w
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teachers qualified to speak on matt
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Education for Barbarism marked Taba
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fulfil the same function” as ‘T
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state of anonymity to their true st
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of persecution and state harassment
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While Tabata’s presidency may hav
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final choice between the subterfuge
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circulated as the embodiment of its
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CHAPTER SEVEN DORA TAYLOR AND THE N
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Soon after Tabata arrived in Cape T
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historical understandings, Taylor
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was “tolerably easy”. In fact,
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her text had been “written in its
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the eastern Cape about which she wr
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While she was writing The Rôle of
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out of the strains and pressures of
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who were involved in the movement c
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moved into Gool’s newly rented ho
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off by expressing his “envy” of
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They had a full life and she a full
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emotional and sexual desires as the
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Fashioning Tabata’s biography Vir
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continued to rework and re‐edit T
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us”. Goolam Gool, he had argued,
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political practice”. Tabata assur
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Nine that the AAC and Unity Movemen
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authored pamphlets aimed at “clar
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production of I.B. Tabata made a mi
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political work in the movement, in
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political leadership. By that time,
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unleashing different forms of biogr
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their political exchanges. 9 Later,
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where “fierce debates and discuss
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education as well as mechanisms of
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identification”. This identity cl
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need for leadership”. Tabata invi
Page 465 and 466: Likewise, concepts of strategic val
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Page 471 and 472: them. Sihlali’s presidentship of
Page 473 and 474: expressed had been “essentially h
Page 475 and 476: By the 1950s, increased internal bl
Page 477 and 478: way of their own greatness?” 76 A
Page 479 and 480: “suspended” from the movement,
Page 481 and 482: Thereafter, Alexander and his comra
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Page 485 and 486: From around 1960, leaders of the Un
Page 487 and 488: The movement’s ‘architect’ al
Page 489 and 490: with the other liberation movements
Page 491 and 492: The ADC was a means of Tabata “ri
Page 493 and 494: ureaucratic abuse and of trying to
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Page 497 and 498: NUM. They found instead a hostility
Page 499 and 500: significance of deceased ‘heroes
Page 501 and 502: A man … surrounded by a sea of pe
Page 503 and 504: and Alie and Ursula Fataar had assi
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Page 507 and 508: in “his contribution” to the li
Page 509 and 510: Almost unexpectedly, at his funeral
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Page 513 and 514: community of Lesseyton interred one
Page 515: The final entry of Tabata’s body
Page 519 and 520: discovered heritage constructions o
Page 521 and 522: national heritage, even when those
Page 523 and 524: elevant information from my researc
Page 525 and 526: disrespectful. And the fact that th
Page 527 and 528: what I offer here is more than a st
Page 529 and 530: (e) Central Archives Depot, Pretori
Page 531 and 532: Ilizwi leSizwe, Vol. 1, No 2, 18 Oc
Page 533 and 534: (b) Other Videos Hell’s Angel: Mo
Page 535 and 536: (f) CD‐Roms Nelson Mandela: The s
Page 537 and 538: Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museu
Page 539 and 540: 7. INTERVIEWS AND RECORDINGS OF SPE
Page 541 and 542: William Beinart and Colin Bundy, Hi
Page 543 and 544: Stephen Clingman, The Novels of Nad
Page 545 and 546: Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Tra
Page 547 and 548: Dominic LaCapra, Writing History, W
Page 549 and 550: David Morley and Ken Worpole (eds),
Page 551 and 552: James D Sexton (ed), Son of Tecum U
Page 553 and 554: Susan G Wynne (Compiler), South Afr
Page 555 and 556: Elizabeth S Cohen, ‘Court Testimo
Page 557 and 558: Brian Elliot, ‘Biography, Family
Page 559 and 560: Baruch Hirson, ‘Ruth Schechter: F
Page 561 and 562: Desiree Lewis, ‘Winnie Mandela: T
Page 563 and 564: Bill Nasson, ‘A Sharecropper’s
Page 565 and 566: Hilary Sapire, ‘African Political
Page 567 and 568:
Dora Taylor, ‘They Speak of Afric
Page 569 and 570:
Kwame Anthony Appiah, ‘Cosmopolit
Page 571 and 572:
Twentieth Century’, Paper present
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