Doubly Elite

Exploring the Life of John Langalibalele Dube

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4603794
AutoresHeather Hughes (0000-0001-6437-2653, autor correspondente)
Ano2001
Volume27
Fascículo3
Páginas445-458
Data de publicação2001-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13632430120074536
OpenAlexW2076262037
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas6

" The first president of the African National Congress, John Langalibalele Dube, is well known as the leading spokesman of his day of Natal's African Christian elite. This article shows that his membership of another elite, that of the Qadi chiefdom, is central to an understanding of the role he played in the 1920s and 1930s in brokering segregationist alliances between white and black interests. The Qadi chief provided critical support to Dube throughout his long career; Dube, in turn, brought much prestige to the chiefdom. Moreover, Dube's connections caused deep rifts and raised many political questions over the idea of Christians associating with traditionalists, not only on his own mission station at Inanda but throughout colonial Natal. Yet his membership of two elites was also of a doubly subjugated kind: Africans suffered inferior status in the eyes of both the state and the church. He fiercely resented and rejected this. Yet his simultaneous desire for respectability and acceptance prevented him from breaking free altogether of the order that entrapped him, and produced in him so many of the ambiguities that Shula Marks has extensively explored. "

Chiefdom · Colonialism · Elite · Political science · Politics · Prestige · Sociology · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Gender Studies · Law · Legal Issues in South Africa · Philosophy · South African History and Culture