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Botswana and the Bully: Apartheid South Africa and Southern African Development Coordination Conference, 1978-1986
Get PDFThis article examines how events in South Africa between 1978 and 1986 impacted Botswana and the broader Southern African region. During the apartheid era, South Africa went to extraordinary lengths to gain the support of its neighbours. It implemented the destabilisation policy in an attempt to persuade neighbouring states to accept apartheid after failing to convince them to sign non-aggression pacts. This resulted in events that shaped Botswana\u27s political ties with South Africa, and the latter’s economic links with the other Southern African countries. Meanwhile, regional, and international developments added to the complexity of Botswana -South African relations. In 1976, South Africa was put under international sanctions while in the region, the independent countries established the Southern African Development Coordination Conference to counter South Africa\u27s attempts to assert authority over the region. This paper, thus, advances that Botswana was caught in a balancing act between its economic relations with both hegemonic South Africa and fellow independent African states. To examine how Botswana tactfully maneuvered this complex period, the research relies on archival sources from Botswana, South Africa and Britain, and newspaper reports, all contextualised within existing historiography on South Africa’s sub-imperialism
Editorial
Get PDFOver the past decade we have witnessed an explosion in the number of studies focusing on education in times of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the vast number of articles in this edition of Perspectives in Education will focus on education during the COVID-19 pandemic, we will start by looking at several other topical issues related to education in times of crisis
Book review of, Across the Border: Surviving the Secret War in Angola
No full textNorman McFarlane’s recently published memoir of his experiences as a national serviceman and then as a Citizen Force “camper” brings a new perspective to the growing library of conscript accounts of service in the South Africa “Bush” or “Border War” in northern Namibia/Angola. To date, the majority of the published conscript accounts cover service during the second decade of thewar from 1978 to 1988; but McFarlane’s narrative brings a conscript’s perspective of service in the earlier Operation Savannah in 1975/6. The first clandestine phase of the war, under the South African Defence Force (SADF) code name Operation Savannah, was cloaked in secrecy at the time. Thrown into a maelstrom of post-Vietnam Cold War politics by the collapse of the Portuguese colonial regime in Angola, the South African government attempted a cloak-and-dagger military intervention into that country in support of the two anti-colonial forces that espoused anticommunism: the Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA) and the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) and that were struggling for control of the country againstthe Russian-armed and Cuban-supported forces of the Marxist-Leninist Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA). 
Book review of, The Ideological Scramble for Africa: How the Pursuit of Anticolonial Modernity Shaped a Postcolonial Order 1945-1966
No full textOffering an Africa-centered perspective, The Ideological Scramble for Africa challenges the prevailing scholarly view that the Cold War shaped the postcolonial order. Frank Gerits argues instead that in the two decades following World War 2 (1945-1966), the competition between capitalists and communists was only one of multiple ideological struggles. More significant was thebattle between North and South, that is, the struggle between imperialists, who championed European cultural norms, and liberationists, who respected African cultural values
Christianity, ‘supernatural’ beliefs and COVID-19
Get PDFCOVID-19 arguably had far-reaching implications for Christianity and the church as an institution. Issues around social distancing and lockdown directly impacted articulation and religious expression, while understanding of the pandemic and the virus were mediated through constructions of religio-spiritual beliefs. Given this, the study sought to explore some neo-Pentecostal church leaders’ messages in South Africa regarding the novel coronavirus or COVID-19, what this meant to their followers and the associated implications for the spread and effects of COVID-19. Methodologically, the researcher iewed and listened to uploaded YouTube video clips of news related to the church and COVID-19, uploaded bymedia outlets and the neo-Pentecostal church leaders themselves as well as online newspaper reports from the period 2 March to 19 June 2020. The findings of the study reveal that neo-Pentecostal church leaders attributed the origins of SARS-COV-2 to “evil” spirits. Neo-Pentecostal church leaders had mixed messages on the possible cure for COVID-19, with some emphasising miracles as the panacea for COVID-19, and a minority believing that God exhibits his power through epidemiologists. Prayer was also viewed as a tool for Christians to protect themselves from contracting COVID-19 through the invocation of divine powers. The paper concludes that the pervasive influence of church leaders and their emphasis onspiritual remedies such as prayer and miracles may have given Pentecostal followers a false sense of security, which might have affected their awareness of COVID-19
An ongoing search of constant and sustainable Lutheran Theological Education in South Africa in the 21st century.
Get PDFThis article explores the recent history of Lutheran theological education in South Africa, which is still confronted by the legacy of colonial and apartheid education systems. The latter need to be confronted with liberation and decolonisation systems that reclaim African indigenous identities. There is a need to cultivate a culture of quality and equal education, spirituality, politics, and socio-economic systems for the service of South Africans. Evangelical Lutheran churches inSouthern Africa are committed to improve and reform Lutheran theological education in the 21st century. Lutheran theological education is necessary to make a meaningful contribution towards training theological students to assist the church in its response to societal concern and contextual issues. The article introduces a recent renewal of Lutheran theological institutions in a new teaching and learning environment by the Lutheran Church. It discusses the implications and successes of Lutheran theological education in South Africa
African recognition of dignity as a basis for universal human rights
Get PDFI present a typically African account of human dignity, which I derive from Ifeanyi Menkiti’s influential strongly normative view of traditional African practices of recognition respect (2004). I explain how this implies a suitable basis for a common good criterion for human rights. I develop this account against (a) the claims of Tshepo Madlingozi (2017) and Vincent Lloyd that the struggle against anti-Black racist domination does not depend on recognition; (b) the claim by David Boucher (2011) that human dignity is a convenient fiction for human rights recognition; and (c) the claims of Kwame Gyekye (2002) and Motsamai Molefe (2020) that Menkiti’s view on human dignity does not provide adequate warrant for the universality of human rights. I draw on Menkiti’s account of recognition respect for human dignity and on arguments for the authority of actual rights recognition by Gerald Gaus (2006) and Rex Martin (2013). In doing so, I present a comprehensive theory of human rights recognition that does not depend on any intrinsic, transcendental human capacity but locates the universality of human rights in the mutually recognised common good, which is implicit in extant African communal normative social practices that are oriented toward the recognition of dignity
A review of some of the criteria used in land-demarcation processes
Get PDFIn recent years, settlements have sprawled beyond the urban growth boundaries, due to a number of factors, including mobility, technology, and urban blight. As a result, governments globally have opted to restructure their local administrative boundaries (municipalities) to be more accommodating to the unplanned growth, while setting a clear limit to the extent to which the urban region could grow. Without a clear administrative boundary, urban problems such as civil conflict, administrative duplication, political corruption, lack of service delivery, and environmental degradation become more prevalent. In order to understand the driving forces behind administrative delimitation, this article reviews how local administrative boundaries can be delineated from a theoretical stance. It further unpacks various criteria to contextualise how boundaries could be demarcated and their resultant structure. The article reveals that, from a theoretical stance, the method of demarcating administrative urban boundaries is not apparent, since a variety of factors influence open systems. Consequently, this article provides awareness of the challenges of demarcating local administrative boundaries, with both administrative and policy implications. Administratively, it sheds light on criteria that can influence boundary demarcation. In terms of policy, it demonstrates that the demarcation of boundaries is a huge challenge that requires further research and action
WOMEN’S NEEDS VS. ECONOMIC SURVIVAL DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: NAVIGATING THIS TENSION USING CARE AND JUSTICE
Get PDFWomen are among the many vulnerable groups that are severely affected by the pandemic: All over the world, women have been hit harder by the pandemic, leading some to call the global recession a “shecession”. “Shecession” refers to “the disproportionate impact of a pandemic recession on working women”, which leads to greater gender inequality. Working women have been gravely affected by the pandemic, but their situation is often justified as “necessary” in helping businesses survive. We argue for a caring justice framework, using Fratelli Tutti and care ethics in navigating the tensions between the individual and the community, analysing and transforming the way in which work is structured in the Philippines at present
The complexities of delivering a home-school based comprehensive sexuality curriculum to visually impaired learners:
Get PDFFollowing the ongoing study to develop a Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) curriculum for visually impaired learners in South Africa, teachers reported hesitance from parents/guardians to inform their visually impaired children about sex. As such, this study sought to explore parents/guardians’ involvement in their children’s psychosexual education. Five parents/guardians were engaged in a focus-group discussion. Data were analysed thematically, while home-school partnership theory underpinned this study. Parents felt confident that they had prepared their children with enough psychosexual education to make healthy sexual choices, and therefore blamed teachers, security guards, and hostel caretakers for their children’s early sexual debut. However, no blame or accountability was assigned to the learners for their own sexual behaviour and decision-making. Interrogating the complexities within these socio-educational spaces suggested that there was confusion in the roles and responsibilities assumed for the capacitation of visually impaired learners with CSE. More importantly, the problem was not that parents were worried that these learners were not having safe sex, but that they should not be having sex at all now or in the future. The study suggests that a supportive, non-judgemental, and collaborative home-school partnership is necessary to recognise and guide the sexual agency of visually impaired learners