“The Conversation” web site, started not long ago, only allows you to “become an author” (i.e. contribute to “the conversation”) if you are an academic.
“You must be a member of an academic or research institution to write for The Conversation,” it says. You have to name an institution, and they say they will “verify your affiliation with that institution”. This is elitism. This is an elite conversation, from which the masses, and especially, political subjects, are excluded. In effect, “The Conversation” is an attack on popular agency. It excludes and over-rides popular agency. The articles from “The Conversation” web site are beginning to appear in various newspapers, including in The New Age and as here, in the Independent group newspapers. If you have read a few of them, you will find that they all have the uniform “non-political” sicky flavour of orthodox, self-promotion-oriented academics. In fact they are all conservative. As much as this article appears to be offering a compassionate approach to some people’s problems, in fact it offers nothing. The author does not commit, and asks for no commitment. Whereas what is needed in relation to these former conscripts is no different from what is needed for whites in general, and everyone else for that matter, which is their inclusion within the revolutionary political movement of the country. In the background of Ms Edlmann’s mind is a blank space where the actually-existing South African polity should be, but is not. Hers is a version of what has previously been called the “Therapy to Victim” (T2V) approach to politics, also called “A Process Without a Subject”. It is the opposite of “Power to the People”. In Edlmann’s typically academic world, the people are all more or less sick, and need help from the few elite people like herself who qualify to preach from this ivory-tower web site called “The Conversation”, which is not a conversation at all. It would better be called “The Patronisation”. Or “The Colonialisation”. VC From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sibusiso Mchunu Sent: 03 September 2015 15:45 To: communist-university Cc: yclsa-eom-forum Subject: [Sadtu Pol Ed Forum] The Scars of Conscription "Most of the trauma they might have experienced remains unspoken or manifests in aggression, particularly when dealing with people, groups and situations they perceive to be a threat in some way." The scars of conscription September 3 2015 at 03:00pm By Theresa Edlmann <http://www.iol.co.za/mercury/the-scars-of-conscription-1.1910292#comments_start> Comment on this story IOL NM_SADF20 <http://www.iol.co.za/polopoly_fs/iol-nm-sadf20-1.1910291!/image/353471103.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_300/353471103.jpg> SADFSouth African soldiers during raids in the 14-year Angolan war, which began in 1975. Theresa Edlmann examines the lingering, unspoken pain of white youth who fought for apartheid. The legacies of apartheid in South Africa can only be understood by making sense of the complexities of the past. This includes recognising what those who were young during the apartheid era – and who are now the elders and leaders of our society – experienced during that time. In the approximately 30 years between the Sharpeville massacre and the 1994 democratic elections that ended apartheid, a generation of southern Africans faced challenging and often conflicting choices about ideological allegiances. For young white boys, the end of their school careers came with a choice about responding to the “call-up” to the South African Defence Force. This system of military conscription was instituted in 1957 by the apartheid government and became compulsory from 1968 onwards. Military conscription was key in the apartheid state’s “total response” to what was construed as a “total onslaught” by the perceived threats of communism and African nationalism. The state tried to draw white society into supporting this campaign by invoking a generations-long tradition of men doing military service to protect their country, values and families. The end of apartheid meant that this was the last generation of white South African and South West African (now Namibian) families to send off their young men to war in such large numbers. The very different dynamics of contemporary South Africa make it hard to understand the scale of pressure these young men experienced at home, in many churches and in most social and political domains. White South African society was politically conservative and deeply invested in protecting its interests. Democratic notions such as freedom of choice were almost unheard of. Calls of duty and service were paramount. The impact that the system of conscription had on the approximately 600 000 white men, or 7.1% of the roughly 4.2 million white people in South Africa in 1992, who became both pawns and agents of the apartheid state, has seldom been publicly acknowledged in post-apartheid South Africa. Duty and conscience Those who accepted the call-up received rigorous military training, followed by deployment in South Africa, Namibia or Angola for the rest of their period of service. After that came several years of annual short-term “camps”. Over the 25 years that conscription was in place, service increased from nine months to a total of 720 days, including camps. Military combat was rare until 1975, when the SADF invaded Angola after its Portuguese colonial government collapsed. This initiated 14 years of what became known as the Border War, consisting of intense military and guerrilla warfare in northern Namibia and southern Angola. There were harsh consequences for those who disobeyed the call-up. Their choices? A court martial and up to six years in prison, exile in another country or going into hiding in South Africa. University studies could delay military service, and some men exploited this for as long as possible. Conscientious objection (on religious rather than moral, ethical or political grounds) became a legal option in the mid-1980s – around the time the End Conscription Campaign was established and began public campaigns in support of conscientious objectors as well as calling for an end to conscription. The war comes home White South African society lived in almost complete ignorance about the scale of the war and the SADF’s strategies. Most conscripts said little about what they experienced. This was partly because they had to sign the Official Secrets Act upon joining. It was also the result of the “willed ignorance” of most white South Africans and the draconian censorship laws of the time. In the mid-1980s, anti-apartheid resistance within South Africa intensified and SADF soldiers were deployed domestically. Suddenly, young white men were being called on to police fellow citizens by patrolling the racially defined borders between segregated communities. The Border War had come home. The unsustainable nature of the morally and economically bankrupt apartheid system became increasingly evident even to apartheid’s leaders, who initiated discussions with the then banned ANC during this time. The ramifications were widespread. The war in Namibia and Angola ended with the 1989 withdrawal of the SADF from Namibia. Namibia gained independence a year later. The ANC and other organisations were unbanned, political prisoners were released and the negotiations that led to the 1994 elections got under way. 1994: A new era Conscription was officially disbanded in 1995, as was the SADF. A new integrated army was established – and conscription slipped into the realms of silence and memory for most people. For conscripts themselves, the memories of their time in the military haven’t faded. Some have embraced the possibilities of new freedoms, while others have fought to maintain and celebrate historical identities in a changed context. There have been some efforts by the public and civil society to recognise the complexities of conscripts’ experiences, being both victims of a system and perpetrators in its name. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission held a special hearing on conscription. Increasing numbers of books about and by conscripts have been published. And several groups such as veterans, some NGOs and the Legacy of Apartheid Wars Project at Rhodes University have done some work around the issue, mostly in the form of research, public dialogues and workshops to address issues of woundedness and trauma – for conscripts and those who fought against apartheid. However, for the majority of conscripts, the discursive laagers that have shaped their social positioning remain intact. Most of the trauma they might have experienced remains unspoken or manifests in aggression, particularly when dealing with people, groups and situations they perceive to be a threat in some way. As the more complex dimensions of our apartheid history begin to emerge, the healing and transformative possibilities of stories about conscription surfacing in the public domain should not be underestimated – especially as a way of making sense of our deeply racially divided society. * Theresa Edlmann is a post-doctoral fellow in history at Unisa. Her research interests revolve around the storied nature of personal and social identities, histories and change. The focus of her doctoral research was the psychosocial legacies of apartheid-era violence, and the system of compulsory conscription of white men into the South African Defence Force in particular. ** The ciews expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media. The Conversation -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/sadtu-political-education-forum. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SADTU Political Education Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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