Decolonization and White Africans

P. Eric Louw

Description

Decolonization and White Africans examines how African decolonization affected white Africans in eight countries – Algeria, Kenya, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Angola, Mozambique, South West Africa (Namibia), and South Africa – and discusses their varied responses to decolonization, including resistance, acquiescence, negotiations, and migration. It also examines the range of mechanisms used by the global community to compel white Africans into submitting to decolonization through such means as official pressure, diplomatic negotiations, global activism, sanctions, and warfare.
Until now, books about African decolonization usually approached the topic either from the perspective of the colonial powers or from an anti-colonial black African perspective. As a result, white African perspectives have been marginalized, downplayed, or presented reductively. Decolonization and White Africans adds white African perspectives to the story, thereby broadening our understanding of the decolonization phenomenon.

Sujets

• African Studies
• Political Science
• African
• Zimbabue
• Kenia
• Sudáfrica
• África
• South Africa
• African people
• Decolonization
• General officer
• Zambia
• Namibia
• Colonialism
• Algeria
• Mozambique
• World
• General
• Algérie
• History
• Africa
• Namibie
• Zimbabwe
• Kenya
• Angola
• Afrique du Sud

Informations

• Publié par: Academica Press
• Date de parution: 22 février 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781680532890
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Decolonization and White Africans: The “Winds of Change,” Resistance, and Beyond
P. Eric Louw
Academica Press Washington~London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Louw, P. Eric. (author)
Title: Decolonization and White Africans: The “Winds of Change,” Resistance, and Beyond | P. Eric Louw
Description: Washington : Academica Press, 2022. | Includes references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022931324 | ISBN 9781680532883 (hardcover) | 9781680532890 (e-book)
Copyright 2022 P. Eric Louw
Contents Abbreviations Acknowledgements Preface Chapter 1: Decolonization as “Idea” and “Political Project” Chapter 2: Decolonization Encounters the obstacle of White Africans Chapter 3: British, French, and Portuguese Responses to Decolonization Chapter 4: Southern African Whites Resist Decolonization: Pressure, Wars, and Negotiations Chapter 5: What happened to the Rhodesians? Chapter 6: Apartheid’s Attempt to Create a White African State Chapter 7: The “Miracle” of Ending Apartheid Chapter 8: How the Post-Apartheid State Affected White South Africans Part 1: From Sharing to “Transformation” Chapter 9: How the Post-Apartheid State Affected White South Africans Part 2: Beyond the “Miracle” Chapter 10: Roosevelt’s Decolonization Dream, White Africans, and Afropessimism Bibliography Notes Index
Abbreviations
AAG – Affirmative Action Group
Alcora – Alliance Against the Rebellions in Africa (Aliança Contra as Rebeliões em Africa)
ANC –African National Congress
ANCYL – African National Congress Youth League
ANYL – African National Youth League
ARMSKOR – Armaments Corporation
AWB – Afrikaner Resistance Movement
BDC – Beira Democratic Convergence
BEE – Black Economic Empowerment
BLF – Black Land First
CAS – Capricorn Africa Society
CCB – Civil Co-Operation Bureau
CFU – Commercial Farmer Union
CIO – Central Intelligence Organization
Codesa – Convention for a Democratic South Africa
COMOPS – Combined Operations
COSAG – Concerned South Africans Group
COSATU – Congress of South African Trade Unions
CP – Conservative Party
CRT – Critical Race Theory
DA – Democratic Alliance
DP – Democratic Party
DTA – Democratic Turnhalle Alliance
EFF – Economic Freedom Fighters
ESKOM – Electricity Supply Commission
EU – European Union
EWC – (Land) Expropriation Without Compensation
FC – Stay Together
FF – Freedom Front
FICO – Front for Independent Western Convergence
FIP – Federal Independence Party
FLN – National Liberation Front
FNLA – National Liberation Front of Angola
FOSATU – Federation of South African Trade Unions.
FUA – Angolan United Front
FRELIMO – Front for the Liberation of Mozambique
FRETILIN – Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor
GNU – Government of National Unity
GUMO – United Group of Mozambique
IBDC – Indigenous Business Development Centre
Idasa – Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa
IFP – Inkatha Freedom Party
IRA – Irish Republican Army
LM – Lourenço Marques (Maputo)
MD – Mozambican Democrats
MDA – Angolan Democratic Movement
MDC – Movement for Democratic Change
MFA – Armed Forces Movement
MK – Umkonto we Sizwe
MPLA – People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola
MUD – United Democratic Movement
NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NDP – National Democratic Party
NP – National Party
NRBD – National Reconstruction and Development Board
NSMS – National Security Management System
NUF – National Unifying Force.
NRAC – Northern Rhodesia African Congress
OAS – Secret Army Organization
OAU – Organization of African Unity
OPO – Ovamboland People’s Organization
PAC – Pan-African Congress
PAIGC – African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde
PCDA – Angolan Democratic Convergence Party
PFP – Progressive Federal Party
PIDE - International Police and State Defence
PLAN – People’s Liberation Army (SWAPO)
PLO – Palestinian Liberation Organization
PRASA – Passenger Rail Agency
RAP – Rhodesia Action Party
R&N – Rhodesia and Nyasaland
RET – Radical Economic Transformation
RF – Rhodesia Front
RENAMO – Mozambican National Resistance
SA – South Africa or South African
SAA – South African Airways
SABC – South African Broadcasting Corporation
SABRA – South African Bureau of Racial Affairs
SACP – South African Communist Party
SADF – South African Defence Force
SAIRR – South African Institute of Race Relations
SANRAL – SA National Road Agency
SAP – South African Police
SOE – State owned enterprises
SWA – South West Africa
SWAPO – South West African People’s Organization
SWATF – South West Africa Territory Force
TEC – Transitional Executive Council
TRC – Truth and Reconciliation Commission
TTL – Tribal Trust Land
UCP – United Country Party
UDI – Unilateral Declaration of Independence
UDF – United Democratic Front
UDM – United Democratic Movement
UFP – United Federal Party
UN – United Nations
UNITA – National Union for the Total Independence of Angola
UP – United Party
US – United States
USA – United States of America
UDENAMO – United Democratic Movement of Mozambique
UNIP – United National Independence Party
UPA – Union of the Peoples of Angola
WHAM – Win Hearts and Minds
ZANLA – Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANU)
ZANU – Zimbabwe African National Union
ZANU-PF – Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front
ZAPU – Zimbabwe African People’s Union
ZIPRA – Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZAPU)
ZNLWVA – Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Fernando Pimenta. Our discussions about Mozambique and Angola were really helpful. Thanks also to librarians Angela Hannan and Anne Draper.
Preface
Much has been written about African decolonization from either the perspective of those colonized or from the perspective of the metropolitan powers who did the colonizing. Because the perspectives of white Africans have often been marginal within these texts, this book aims to explicitly bring to the foreground White African perspectives with the hope that providing this third viewpoint will serve to provoke new discussions about African decolonization and the consequences of that decolonization.
Since I lived a large part of my life as a White African, it seems appropriate that I briefly position myself as the writer of this text, plus explain something of my own political journey (which saw me move from the left of the political spectrum to right). I grew up and went to school in what was then Rhodesia, but received my university education in South Africa. I was then conscripted into the South African army for two years. Thereafter I became a journalist at a liberal newspaper in Pretoria before moving on to postgraduate studies and becoming an academic.
My earliest political memories are of sitting at the breakfast table in the early 1960s listening to Radio Rhodesia news telling the unfolding story of African decolonization. As a child I did not yet understand the implications of those news stories, but I could see my parents were troubled by what they heard. Watching my parents’ disbelief and exasperation made it clear they thought something bad was happening. What they were listening to were arguments between the governments of Britain and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland over the future of the Federation. On both sides of my family I was the fourth generation to have lived in Rhodesia. Both my parents and two of my grandparents had been born in Southern Rhodesia and they had been raised to believe the British Empire was a good thing. As a child I might not have understood the politics, but I did grasp that any loyalty my parents had felt for London was now turning to contempt and that they were feeling very unsafe.
As a teenager I discovered the Anglican Church bookshop in Salisbury which sold books by the likes of Basil Davidson, Chinua Achebe, Leopold Senghor, Wole Soyinka, Doris Lessing, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenneth Kaunda, Oginga Odinga, Kwame Nkrumah, Tom Mboya, Lawrence Vambe and Stanlake Samkange. I read these voraciously. At the church bookshop I also signed up to a Fabian newsletter from London. These all shaped my political consciousness in ways that increasingly distanced me from my parents, and wider family, who were by then all loyal followers of Ian Smith’s Rhodesia Front party.
As an undergraduate student I was introduced to the New Left and then while an army conscript I read Marx. While working in Pretoria I gave up my weekends to run classes for Sached’s black adult education program. By the 1980s I was a United Democratic Front (UDF) activist in Durban, attracted by the UDF’s advocacy of non-racialism. I also helped found and run the Durban Media Trainers Group – an NGO that trained black media activists for the UDF and Cosatu. When the ANC was unbanned in 1990 there were no ANC structures left standing inside South Africa. So I served on a committee formed to rebuild ANC structures in Durban. In the beginning the new ANC branches that we created were filled with UDF activists like myself (because the UDF had disbanded itself) but over time the composition of these branches changed.
The period 1990 to 1993 was tumultuous as the ANC and NP fought over a new constitution. Political violence exploded as the ANC and conservative-black parties (like the Inkatha Freedom Party) fought for control of black townships and the ANC adopted mass action to push the NP into accepting the ANC’s preferred constitutional model. During this period returning ANC exiles poured back into the country from Zambia, Tanzania, Britain and Eastern Europe. And as these returnees filled up the newly established ANC branches a discernible shift in political culture took place. Many of the returnees from Africa brought with them a 1960s Uhuru black nationalism, while the returnees from Eastern Europe brought both a Stalinist variety of communism plus a sense of shock at having recently witnessed the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The r