scholarly journals ‘Segregation has fallen on evil days’: Smuts' South Africa, global war, and transnational politics, 1939–46

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hyslop

AbstractSouth African state policy in the 1940s moved in significantly new political directions that were not simply the prelude to apartheid. This shift, under the leadership of Jan Smuts, towards a welfarist management of black urbanization, can only be understood by focusing on transnational dimensions of the period that have been neglected by historians of South Africa. The reorganization of the state was made possible as a consequence of the business of fighting a global war. South African policy changes were intimately linked to the evolution of British colonial policy. And the South African interventions in world politics to support the creation of the United Nations and to reconfigure the southern African subcontinent were to have drastic and unforeseen consequences.

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoon Jung Park

AbstractBased on the author's PhD research, this article focuses on the fluid and contested nature of the identities — racial, ethnic, and national — of people of Chinese descent in South Africa in the apartheid and post-apartheid eras. The research focuses on the approximately 12,000-strong community of second-, third-, and fourth-generation South African-born Chinese South Africans. It reveals that Chinese South Africans played an active role in identity construction using Chinese history, myths and culture, albeit within the constraints established by apartheid. During the latter part of apartheid, movement up the socio-economic ladder and gradual social acceptance by white South Africa propelled them into nebulous, interstitial spaces; officially they remained “non-white” but increasingly they were viewed as “honorary whites.” During the late 1970s and 1980s, the South African state attempted to redefine Chinese as “white” but these attempts failed because Chinese South Africans were unwilling to sacrifice their unique ethnic identity, which helped them to survive the more dehumanizing aspects of life under apartheid.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindani Myeza ◽  
Naledi Nkhi ◽  
Warren Maroun

PurposeThe study aims to deepen the understanding of why risk management principles are circumvented, thereby contributing to transgressions in public procurement for South African state-owned enterprises (SOEs). A deeper understanding of why risk management principles are circumvented is especially important in South Africa, given the high social, economic and environmental risks to which national and major SOEs are exposed in the procurement process.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a qualitative design, based on detailed semi-structured interviews with 19 participants comprising management advisors, forensic investigators and auditors to explore why risk management principles are circumvented by South Africa SOEs.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that the tone that is set at political and executive level plays an important role in determining compliance with risk management principles by lower-level staff. Intense levels of political influence at SOEs are the main reason behind risk management systems being undermined.Originality/valueThe current study is one of the first explorations of why transgressions in public procurement continue to be evident despite risk management reforms being adopted by South Africa public sector. The research responds to the call for more studies on why reforms in South Africa public sector are not reducing transgression in public procurement. The study provides primary evidence on the importance of political and executive leadership in influencing the effectiveness of risk management reforms in the public sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 162-176
Author(s):  
Maphelo Malgas ◽  
Bonginkosi Wellington Zondi

The basis of this article is an article published by Thomas (2012) whose objective was to track over a two-year period the performance of five strategic South African state-owned enterprises with regards to issues of governance. These enterprises were ESKOM, South African Airways (SAA), South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Telkom, and Transnet. The paper revealed that there were serious transgressions in these entities and recommendations were made to address these. The aim of this article therefore was to establish whether or not the transgressions reported by Thomas are still happening within these entities. The data was collected from the 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017, and 2017/2018 financial reports of these entities. The study revealed that the transgressions are still taking place. With regards to issues of sustainability SAA and SABC continue to make loses, with SAA continuing to be bailed out by the South African government against the will of the South African general public. Fruitless and wasteful expenditure increased in all the five entities mentioned above and no serious action has been taken by the South African government to hold the people responsible accountable. While Telkom, Transnet and Eskom were making profits these profits are not at the envisaged level.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 586-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thembisa Waetjen

Summary Controls over trade and consumption of narcotic medicines emerged as both a concern and emblem of progressive governance around the turn of the twentieth century. This article traces political struggles over drugs regulation in the case of colonial South Africa. It focuses on two parallel streams of law-making by the British occupation regime in the Transvaal, following the Anglo-Boer war. Controversies over the availability of traditional ‘Dutch medicines’ to Boer farmers and prohibitions of certain patent medicines to African consumers were elements of, and contradictions within, the process of building a modern pharmaceutical economy. An influx to the region of new curatives coincided with the growth of vernacular newspapers as well as temperance campaigns. Working to nurture white national cohesion and support a mining industry premised on unskilled black labour, the South African state created race-based drugs controls. These developments proved significant to regulatory statecraft later in the century.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-349
Author(s):  
Peter Vale

Summary This article reviews a trilogy of memoirs written by diplomats who served South Africa’s apartheid government. It explores the ‘communication’ versus ‘representative’ function of diplomacy and sets this in the context of a pariah state, as apartheid South Africa once was. It suggests that all diplomats who served under apartheid were complicit in that system. The article also looks towards the role that the idea of the international setting played in the formation of a southern African state system. This is viewed again the backdrop of Britain’s fading empire. This explains how South African diplomacy was cast in the imperial mode. The porousness of southern Africa’s borders is used to explain how diplomacy was used to reproduce states.


2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
pp. 1061-1090
Author(s):  
Max du Plessis

The ICC considered two central questions: First, whether South Africa failed to comply with its obligations under the statute by not arresting and surrendering Al-Bashir to the Court while he was in South African territory despite having received a request from the ICC under Articles 87 and 89 of the Statute for his arrest and surrender. Second, whether a formal finding of noncompliance by South Africa in this respect and referral of the matter to the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute or to the United Nations Security Council are warranted.


1991 ◽  
Vol 35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 56-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Cottrell

Namibia finally achieved independence on 21 March, 1990, after a long struggle and many false hopes and setbacks. In a nutshell: the territory was colonized by Germany. It was seized by South African forces during the First World War, and then made the subject of a League of Nations Mandate, administered by South Africa, after the war. Following the Second World War, South Africa tried to incorporate the territory, a move resisted by the United Nations. In 1966 the International Court of Justice denied standing to Ethiopia and Liberia to allege breaches of the mandate. However, shortly thereafter the UN voted to terminate the mandate. At about the same time the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) launched its armed struggle. South Africa's response to these developments was to implement plans for the closer integration of the territory into the South African state, and into the system of apartheid. As a result, a system of native authorities, based on ethnicity, was introduced.In 1975 the “Turnhalle” talks were started which, although rejected by most of the black groups, led to the establishment of a constituent Assembly. During the same period, a “Contract Group” of Western Nations began to negotiate with South Africa over a settlement for Namibia. The ultimate proposals were accepted by the UN, SWAPO and South Africa, and the plans were recognized by UN Resolution 435. But immediately thereafter problems began to arise, and talks about implementation stopped and started for a number of years.


Polar Record ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 32 (180) ◽  
pp. 25-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus J. Dodds

AbstractThe South African state has never made a formal claim to the Antarctic continent. In the inter-war period, the South African government prepared a number of memorandums and discussion papers on the subject of a ‘South African sector in the Antarctic.’ This paper not only critically interprets those government papers, but, more importantly, assesses the reasons why South Africa never made a formal claim. It is suggested that relations with Britain and the Empire, as well as the activities of Norway and the United States, were crucial determining factors. Finally, the implications for later South African involvement in the South Atlantic and the Antarctic Treaty System are briefly considered.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duane Jethro

During the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa, a mass-produced, plastic football supporters’ horn known as the vuvuzela attracted worldwide fame and infamy. This article discusses the vuvuzela’s construction as a material and sonorous register of ‘African’ and ‘South African’ cultural distinctiveness. Specifically, it discusses the production, circulation and consumption of its ‘African’ cultural significance as a heritage form. It outlines the contested political and ideological economy – involving the South African state and football officials, FIFA, a local manufacturer, indigenous groups and football fans – through which the instrument travelled. Demonstrating the instrument’s circulation through this network, the article shows how the construction and authentication of the vuvuzela materially and sonically staged the negotiation of notions of ‘Africanness’ and ‘South Africanness’, as well as their complex relationship in post-apartheid South Africa, during the tournament.


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