Ndumiso Dladla: Getting over Apartheid with Azanian Historiography

Lecture on "Getting Over Apartheid: An Introduction to Azanian Historiography" in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Presented by Ndumiso Dladla is lecturer of philosophy at UNISA in Pretoria.

Chaired by:
Shaheed Tayob, Social Anthropology Lecturer in the Department of Sociology & Social Anthropology at Stellenbosch University.

Abstract:
After providing a general introduction to Azanian critical theory and its sources, the paper will turn to the problem of Apartheid in South African history as well as its history and theory (South African history). Taking Biko’s insight that “the greatest mistake the black world ever made was to assume whomever was against apartheid was an ally” as our point of departure the paper will make three general arguments. 1. The emphasis upon Apartheid in South African historical thinking and by extension all the social sciences is a result of Whiteness of academic historiography and the social sciences in general. 2. Apartheid is merely a political administrative and juridical episode in a more fundamental and continuous historical condition of conquest of the indigenous people in the unjust wars of colonisation. 3. The achievement of liberation (epistemic and then political and economic) will in part require the over-coming of apartheid. That is the recognition that the cardinal pillars of historical injustice are the conquest of the indigenous people in the unjust wars of colonisation and the disseizin of their sovereign title to territory. These pillars predate Apartheid by more than two centuries and have outlived it by more than two decades. We will conclude the paper by arguing that the liberation of South African history is the possibility condition for the beginning of any free social theoretical work.