War, popular memory and the literature of the Angolan Conflict
Southern Africa was ravaged by war for much of the second half of the twentieth century. Great changes followed the Second World War. Black consciousness and Pan-Africanism grew alongside and in southern Africa at least partly in response to the consolidation of Afrikaner political and military power. As South Africa moved down the path to ‘garrison statehood’ and ‘total strategy’, the liberation movements in southern Africa, invigorated, funded and supplied with arms by one or other party of the bipolar Cold-War world, formed armed movements with the aim of overthrowing white rule on the subcontinent. The result was an interconnected series of wars fought in Rhodesia, in the Portuguese territories of Mozambique and Angola, and in the northern part of the territory of South West Africa (now Namibia), combined with an armed struggle against South Africa itself.
Most of these conflicts have now ended. But they were a colossal experience; the psychological trauma remaining even after much of the physical damage has been repaired. For South Africa, the conflict in Angola lasted twenty-three years - from 1966 to 1989 – and the impact of war, although not as heavy as in Angola and northern Namibia, was significant; in terms of the financial commitment, the socio-economic disruption and, of course, the cost in human life. The so-called “Bush War” cut deeply into the fabric of South African society and yet, for a long time, South African historians have left this history largely untouched.
Due to a spectrum of material and less measurable factors, the first accounts of the war were produced by foreign journalists and popular writers. They were followed, at first gradually, by South African journalists and then more recently by veterans and professional historians. Now, after almost two decades since the ending of the war, two historians in the Faculty of Military Science have commenced a project to take stock of what has been produced and place these publications within the context of the publication politics of the day.
Ian van der Waag and Deon Visser/Military Sciences/Emails: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
