John Higginson. Collective Violence and the Agrarian Origins of South African Apartheid, 1900–1948 .
2016; Oxford University Press; Volume: 121; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/ahr/121.1.344a
ISSN1937-5239
Autores Tópico(s)Communism, Protests, Social Movements
ResumoThe argument of this deeply researched and attractively written book is that rural power and violence is central to the understanding of modern South African history and, further, that these dynamics underlie the evolution of the system of racial segregation into full-scale apartheid. That South African history, from the beginnings of settlement in the seventeenth century to the present, is saturated in violence—personal, collective, and political—is difficult to dispute. A strong claim can also be made that the region discussed here, Marico and Rustenburg in the old Western Transvaal (now North-West Province), has been the site of more than its fair share of violence and turmoil. From the Afrikaner rebellion of 1914 to Eugène Terre’Blanche’s last-ditch attempt to defend white supremacy at Ventersdorp in 1991, redemptive right-wing Boer republicanism has flourished on this hardscrabble and drought-prone bushveld. Post-apartheid South Africa has not seen much in the way of an easing of tensions, much less a peace dividend: in 2012, thirty-four platinum mine workers were shot and killed by police at Marikana.
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