SJCH 2022 Volume 47 Issue 2

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http://hdl.handle.net/11660/12018

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Browsing SJCH 2022 Volume 47 Issue 2 by Title

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    An academic exchange between JCW Ahiakpor and F Gerits
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Grilli, Matteo
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    Book review
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Nkosi, Phumla Innocent
    Thula Simpson, History of South Africa: From 1902 to the Present, New York, Oxford University Press, 2022, Hardcover ISBN: 9780197672020
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    Book review
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Law, Kate
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    Book review
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Masakure, Clement
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    Editorial
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Grilli, Matteo
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    Historical analysis of coffee production and associated challenges in Kenya from 1893 to 2018
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Wanzala, Richard Wamalwa; Marwa, Nyankomo W.; Nanziri, Elizabeth L.
    Coffee is one of the most important export crops in Kenya, contributing about 22 per cent of the national income and is a source of livelihood for more than 700 000 households. However, despite its immense importance to the Kenyan economy, coffee exports have continued to shrink. This paper explores the introduction and upscaling production of coffee in Kenya from 1893 to 2018 and associated challenges. It assesses the role of white settlers and Kenyans in coffee production during the colonial period (1893-1962) and the post-independence period (1963-2018). This research showcases how a mismatch in policy direction at a local level and insufficient support to coffee farmers in Kenya have led to a downward trajectory of coffee production. The data was collected from secondary sources and was analysed chronologically to historicise coffee production and its associated challenges. The study concludes that the dismal performance of coffee production is partly attributable to coffee prices, marketing channels, coffee financing, coffee regulations, cost of production, management of cooperatives and processing of exported coffee. Thus, it is recommended that the Kenyan government harmonise existing policies regulating the coffee industry in terms of licensing, marketing, and making credit available to farmers.
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    A hostage economy: the impact of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence on Zambia, 1965-79
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Chongo, Clarence
    In November 1965, Rhodesia’s Prime Minister Ian Smith announced a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), prompting the United Nations and the British government to impose economic and financial sanctions on his government. In the context of regional politics of decolonisation, the Zambian government interpreted UDI as a moral affront to African freedom, independence, dignity as well as posing a grave danger to the country’s national security. They responded to the crisis by supporting international sanctions on Rhodesia and embarked on an exercise to extricate the economy from dependence on the illegal regime. This article traces part of these strategic initiatives employed by the Zambian government in response to UDI and illustrates how strict compliance to international sanctions along with economic disengagement severely strained the country’s economic stability. It argues that although UDI immeasurably compromised Zambia’s development efforts and brutally exposed the limitations and vulnerability of its economy, ultimately the government exploited the situation to its advantage by promoting the country’s development agenda through establishment of alternative transport routes, new sources of energy and electricity, and import substitution industries. Economic diversification became a major priority of government policy in the wake of UDI. The article utilises evidence from the Zambian archives to investigate the nature and extent of the challenges and opportunities UDI imposed on Zambia’s economy between 1965 and 1979. Until now, scholars have hardly interrogated this aspect.
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    An imperial historian of empire: insights from the Philip Warhurst papers, Killie Campbell Africana Library
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Marmon, Brooks
    This research note recovers the career and personal papers of Philip Warhurst, a British historian who taught at universities in Rhodesia and South Africa from the 1960s until the 1990s. The note simultaneously reviews the extent of the holdings of the Warhurst Papers at the Killie Campbell Africana Library in Durban while also exploring the insights the collection offers on Warhurst’s views on race relations and his positionality vis-a-vis the British Empire and the Commonwealth. As the collection is open but unprocessed, this note aims to provide a guide that will assist scholars in navigating the collection. The collection will particularly appeal to scholars interested in Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence era (1965-1979). Warhurst was at the frontline of numerous political developments in the colony during this time. Materials document conditions at the University of Rhodesia following political disturbances in 1966 and 1973 and Warhurst’s desire to maintain academic freedom at the university. Warhurst was also a senior official in the Centre Party, a comparatively moderate political group that sought to increase black political participation in Rhodesia, but which expressed opposition to black majority rule. The collection also holds extensive materials of a less overt political nature, primarily documenting Warhurst’s ecumenical activities and support for Scouting in both South Africa and Rhodesia. Finally, the papers hold extensive scholarly notes by Warhurst concerning his review of archival and published material as well as several unpublished lectures and papers.
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    Making and unmaking bonds: humanitarianism, local politics and peacebuilding in Southeastern Zimbabwe, 1988 to 1992
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Manamere, Kundai
    For a long time, perspectives of governments, civil societies and humanitarian organisations have overshadowed the voices of host communities during humanitarian emergencies. In a few instances where literature mentions host communities, they are often portrayed as homogenous groups that share similar views and attitudes towards those in need of assistance. In this article, I draw from host-refugee interactions to argue for the incorporation of local voices in civil society and humanitarianism studies and to illustrate the need to disaggregate host communities and pay attention to local politics during interventions. The influx of thousands of migrants from different countries and ethnic groups, changes the environment of the host community positively and negatively. Often, initial benevolence gives way to hostility as resource scarcities and insecurities arise. When this happens, it creates an environment of suspicion, blame, and stigma, which negatively impacts relations and cohesion between the two groups. Paying attention to local residents’ diverse perspectives during humanitarian emergencies may contribute to conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
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    Misrepresenting occurrences and personalities in Ghana, 1979-1983: a comment on Frank Gerit's incorrect and misleading claims
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Ahiakpor, James C. W.
    Frank Gerits’s article contains several misrepresentations and false claims about events and personalities in Ghana during the turbulent years of 1979 through 1983. The most serious of these are his treatments of Flt. Lt. Jerry Rawlings and Dr. Kwesi Botchwey. Gerits ignores Rawlings’s own explanations for his actions and misrepresents Botchwey’s arguments in two essays. The important lessons for economic policy formulation and governance in the Third World to be learned from the painful experiences Ghanaians went through in those years are distorted by Gerits’s attempting to craft an interpretive perspective he calls “anticolonial capitalism” or “anticolonial liberation.” My comment clarifies.
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    A rebuttal to Ahiakpor's criticisms and a reflection on the historical craft
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Gerits, Frank;
    I want to thank Professor Ahiakpor for engaging with my work. A historian rarely experiences the “subjects” of his research talking back to him because we mainly deal with the archival traces that they left. Whereas my first book, The Ideological Scramble for Africa, focused on the 1950s and 1960s, my article in the previous issue of the Southern Journal for Contemporary History is my first foray into the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, I now have the opportunity to enter into a dialogue with Professor Ahiakpor, who claims my article, “contains several misrepresentations and false claims”. He disagrees with my interpretation of people’s motivations as well as my thesis that many classical economists in Ghana supported the “anticolonial capitalism” project: the embrace of the market to further the political project of liberation in the 1970s and 1980s.