Documenting Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa Select papers from the Nordic Africa Documentation Project workshop, 26–27 November 2009, Pretoria, South Africa

120 Pages·2010·5.486 MB·English

by  Chris Saunders

This publication brings together a number of the ‘think WORKSHOP REPORT
pieces’ prepared for a workshop convened by the
Nordic Africa Institute in Pretoria, South Africa, on
26–27 November, 2009. The workshop marked the end
of the Institute’s Documentation Project on Liberation Documenting Liberation Struggles
Struggles in Southern Africa. Leading scholars,
researchers and others, from both the Nordic countries in Southern Africa
and southern Africa, concerned with documenting those
struggles, attended the workshop. The papers included
here concern both the history of those struggles and Select papers from the Nordic Africa Documentation Project workshop
the sources for that history. 26–27 November 2009, Pretoria, South Africa
Edited by Chris Saunders
I
ISBN 978-91-7106-671-8
Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
(The Nordic Africa Institute)
P.O. Box 1703
SE-751 47 Uppsala, Sweden
9 789171 066718
www.nai.uu.se
DOCUMENTING LIBERATION STRUGGLES
IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
Select papers from the Nordic Africa
Documentation Project workshop,
26–27 November 2009, Pretoria, South Africa
EDITED By CHRIS SAUNDERS
Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, 2010
Indexing terms
Solidarity movements
Archives
Documentation
Documents
Conference reports
Southern Africa
Scandinavia
Photo: Mikko T. Helminen
ISBN 978-91-7106-671-8
© the authors and the Nordic Africa Institute
The report is available for download at www.nai.uu.se
Contents
Introduction
Chris Saunders ........................................................................................................... 5
PART 1 Aspects of the History of Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa
Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa and the Emergence of a
Global Civil Society
Håkan Thörn ............................................................................................................... 11
Southern African Liberation Struggles and the Nordic Countries:
Ideas for Research
Harri Siiskonen ............................................................................................................ 24
International Solidarity and Struggle Archives: Finnish Support
to the Liberation Struggle in Namibia and Mozambique
Pekka Peltola ................................................................................................................ 33
On the Limits to Liberation in Southern Africa
Henning Melber ........................................................................................................... 39
Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle Recycled:
Remembering the Principles of the Struggle in Political Ways
Lene Bull Christiansen .................................................................................................. 48
PART 2 Sources for the History of Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa
Issues in Writing on Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa
Chris Saunders ............................................................................................................. 59
Liberation Archives in South Africa: An Overview
Brown Bavusile Maaba ................................................................................................. 66
Liberation Struggle Material and Digital Technologies: Opportunities
and Obstacles
William Minter ............................................................................................................ 72
Digital Innovation South Africa (DISA) and Digital Preservation
Pat Liebetrau .............................................................................................................. 82
Assessing Information in South Africa’s Department of Defence Archives
Gary Baines.................................................................................................................. 87
Rescuing Zimbabwe’s ‘Other’ Liberation Archives
Gerald Chikozho Mazarire ............................................................................................ 95
Notes on Contributors ................................................................................................................... 107
Workshop Programme .................................................................................................................. 108
List of Participants ........................................................................................................................... 111
Final Project Report
Proscovia Svärd ............................................................................................................ 113
Workshop participants.
Introduction
Chris Saunders
This publication brings together a number of the ‘think pieces’ prepared for a
workshop convened by the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in Pretoria, South Africa,
on 26–27 November, 2009. This workshop, which marked the end of the NAI’s
Documentation Project on the Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa, was at-
tended by leading scholars, researchers and others, from both the Nordic countries
and southern Africa, concerned with documenting those struggles. The workshop
participants discussed a range of issues relating to that objective, including issues
of access and visibility, and ways in which co-operation between Nordic universi-
ties and Southern African universities could be furthered. It was agreed that it
was important to document lessons learned from documentation and digitization
processes to share the knowledge accumulated to date.
Other papers presented at the workshop and not included here may be found
on the website www.liberationafrica.se.
The Nordic Documentation Project on the Liberation Struggles in Southern
Africa was established in 2003 when Lennart Wohlgemuth was Director of the
NAI, and in his presentation to the 2009 workshop he recalled that in the early
1990s Dr Ibbo Mandaza of the Southern Africa Regional Institute for Policy Stud-
ies in Harare, Zimbabwe, had persuaded him that the NAI should participate in a
project on the history of liberation struggles in southern Africa. While the general
project was unfortunately never completed, a research project was set up by the
NAI in 1994 entitled ‘The National Liberation of Southern Africa: the role of the
Nordic countries’. Tor Sellström, its co-coordinator, had worked closely with the
liberation movements in the region over many years. The NAI project resulted in
the publication of two volumes on Sweden’s role written by Sellström himself, and
one each on Denmark, Finland and Norway, as well as a volume of interviews that
Sellström had conducted with important actors in the struggles across the region.
Sellström’s work was the first major study of international solidarity with the anti-
apartheid struggle, and it has only relatively recently been followed by similar stud-
ies of such solidarity in other countries.1 After the publication of the NAI volumes,
the Nordic project became a documentation one, which included establishing a
1 See esp. South African Democracy Education Trust, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, vol-
ume 3, International Solidarity, parts 1 and 2: 2 volumes, Pretoria: University of South Africa Press,
2008, Roger Fieldhouse, Anti-Apartheid. A History of the Movement in Britain (London: Merlin
Press, 2005); William Minter et al. (eds), No Easy Victories. African Liberation and American Activ-
ists over a Half Century (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2008), and Journal of Southern African
Studies, special issue, June 2009.
6 Chris Saunders
website on Nordic support to the liberation struggles in southern Africa (www.lib-
erationafrica.se). Proscovia Svärd, who co-ordinated this project until 2009, helped
identify material relating to the anti-apartheid movement in Iceland, which had
previously been almost entirely undocumented.2
It was possible here only to include a selection of the papers presented at the
Pretoria workshop. In the first group of papers that follow, Håkan Thörn, author of
an important book on the anti-apartheid movement in general,3 sets the liberation
struggles in southern Africa in a global context as a transnational movement that
he relates to the world-wide search for global justice. Harri Siiskonen then consid-
ers the Nordic churches and governments in relation to the liberation struggles in
southern Africa and offers suggestions for future research. Pekka Peltola discusses
Finnish support to the liberation struggles in Namibia and Mozambique and Hen-
ning Melber the limits to liberation in southern Africa.4 Lene Christiansen tackles
the issue of the political impact of how the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe is
remembered. These papers by scholars from the Nordic countries remind us of the
very extensive Nordic interest in the history of the liberation struggles in Southern
Africa over many years. It is hoped that they will encourage continued interest in
those struggles in the Nordic countries in the future.
The second set of papers included here relate more directly to the sources
in Southern Africa for the history of the liberation struggles in the region and
to digital initiatives in regard to them. The first of these papers considers what
historians have written about those struggles so far and the kinds of sources they
have used. Brown Maaba then provides a brief overview of the various liberation
archives in South Africa. William Minter discusses problems associated with the
use of digital technologies for creating a digital archive, and Pat Liebetrau draws
on her experience as project manager of Digital Innovation South Africa (DISA) to
write about digital preservation. Gary Baines tells us how difficult it has been to ac-
cess information from South Africa’s Department of Defence Archives in Pretoria,
and finally Gerald Mazarire explores the topic of rescuing Zimbabwe’s liberation
struggle material.
It is hoped that these brief glimpses into ways to document the histories of
the liberation struggles in the region will help future researchers identify sources
and suggest lines of future enquiry. There is no doubt that much more research
into the liberation struggles in southern Africa is sorely needed, and a key to that
is adequate documentation.
2 On the Iceland case see Jónína Einarsdóttir, ‘The Icelandic anti-apartheid movement in Iceland’,
paper presented to the NAI workshop, Pretoria, November 2009.
3 Anti-Apartheid and the Emergence of a Global Civil Society (London and New York: Palgrave, 2006,
new ed. 2009).
4 Henning Melber was Research Director of the Nordic Africa Institute at the time the Documenta-
tion Project was initiated. He was not able to attend the workshop.
Introduction 7
I would like to thank the NAI and its Director, Carin Norberg, for asking
me to edit these papers, and Proscovia Svärd, who was the main organiser of the
Pretoria workshop and who suggested the publication of these papers.

Part 1
Aspects of the History of
Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa