Entering the territory of incitement

Oppositionality andAfrica South

Bibliographic Data

ID3654565
AuthorsCorinne Sandwith (0000-0002-5878-2493, University of KwaZulu-Natal, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume35
Issue1
Pages123-136
Publication date2009-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Dynamics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0253-3952 • E-ISSN: 1940-7874
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02533950802667285
OpenAlexW2111705704
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited11

Africa South was an anti‐apartheid journal edited by Ronald Segal which was published in South Africa in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This article explores the historical and political significance of Africa South and considers its implications for an understanding of ‘oppositionality’ in the post‐apartheid present. The central challenge which Africa South offered to its own context was its transnational perspective. Africa South was an important meeting place in the global routes of the developing pan‐African movement. It is also noteworthy for its effort to bring disparate areas of history and experience – both within the African continent and across the African diaspora – into revealing alignment with one another. The principle of conjuncture, I argue, initiated an important analytical move: the opportunity for illuminating comparison, the re‐conceptualisation of an often fragmented political and social landscape and an unusual glimpse of the whole. In tension with this totalising vision is the journal’s generic eclecticism, its flexible political identity and its collaborative construction. In both its unity and its fragmentation, Africa South offers an important point of departure for activist journalism and oppositional intellectual endeavours in the present. Keywords: oppositionalityactivist journalismpublic intellectualstransnationalismanti‐colonialismpan‐Africanismliberalismapartheid and post‐apartheid South Africa Notes 1. My title is drawn from a phrase in Segal’s memoir Into Exile (Citation1963, p. 170). I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their meticulous and thoughtful responses on an earlier draft of this paper. 2. See Mbeki (Citation2007). In this address, Thabo Mbeki makes repeated references to the ANC’s ‘National Democratic Revolution’. There is every indication that this rhetorical positioning will continue under the new ANC leadership. 3. See, for example, Tabane (Citation2008). 4. For a recent example, see Bond (Citation2008). 5. The comparison with the much more fragmented lay‐out of New Age, Contact and Staffrider is apposite here. On this specific point in relation to Staffrider magazine, see Michael Vaughan (Citation1984, p. 200). 6. Africa South’s sponsors were drawn from mainly South Africa, England, North America and India. The list of sponsors, which appeared on the back inside‐cover of every volume, included some 60 names. 7. Through the efforts of Canon Collins of Christian Action, Segal also received a sizeable donation from the Congress for Cultural Freedom (Interview, 4–7 June 2007). This organisation was one of the many cultural groups identified in the early 1950s as appropriate recipients of covert funding from the CIA. Africa South was also unknowingly drawn into the politics of the CIA and the Cold War through its links with Nikolas Nabokov, one of the journal’s international sponsors, who also happened to be Secretary‐General of the CCF. Through the indirect support given to Africa South via the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA had unwittingly endorsed, and helped to spread, the views of well‐known South African Communists. 8. At its height, Patrick Duncan’s Contact recorded circulation figures of around 15,000 (Driver Citation2000, p. 153). The Guardian and its successor publications were the most successful with average circulation figures of roughly 30,000 (Switzer Citation1997, p. 281). 9. Segal’s connections with Alione Diop, editor of the influential journal Présence Africaine, led to further contacts with writers and journalists from France and Francophone Africa (Interview, 4–7 June 2007). For a detailed discussion of the cultural politics of Présence Africaine, see Hassan (Citation1999). 10. I use the term ‘liberalism’ in its international rather than its South African sense. I wish to foreground the journal’s affiliations with a more general stream of liberal thought rather than to explore the complexities of a specifically South African definition. 11. This phrase is taken from a series of articles which appeared in Africa South in 1958. In this decision, Africa South continues a precedent established in a number of South African publications including Inkundla ya Bantu and Drum. 12. Du Bois resigned from the NAACP executive in 1934 but rejoined the organisation 10 years later. He participated in the fifth Pan‐African Congress held in Manchester in 1945 (Geiss Citation1968, p. 234). 13. Some of the most innovative examples of socio‐political critique in Africa South are those which drew on this transnational perspective. See Ruth First’s analysis of migrant labour in Southern Africa (1961, 5.3, pp. 7–31), Rosalynde Ainslie’s account of life in Nairobi, Kampala and Lusaka (1958, 3.1, pp. 61–68), and Ronald Segal’s comparative reading of oppressive regimes in South Africa, Algeria and Angola (1961, 5.5, pp. 1–4). 14. British‐born author Rosalynde Ainslie met Ronald Segal while she was a student at the University of Cape Town. She returned to Britain after her studies and later became involved in the London‐based Anti‐Apartheid Movement (Interview, 4–7 June 2007). 15. This debate drew contributions from lecturer in African law, Julius Lewin, Jack Simons, Communist Party ideologue, Michael Harmel, Eddie Roux, English historian and economist G.H.D. Cole, and ANC Youth League President, Joe Matthews. 16. See also the contrasting arguments by Michael Wood and Julius Nyerere on the Capricorn Movement (1958, 2.2). 17. The otherwise excellent online discussion forum, ‘DEBATE’, hosted by the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu‐Natal (DEBATE: SA Discussion List, [email protected]) is a striking example of this tendency. For more information about this forum, see http://www.ukzn.ac.za/CCS/default.asp?2,68

Diaspora · Political science · Politics · Sociology · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Gender Studies · History · Law · South African History and Culture

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