Events

In the 1980s, with the National Party moving towards forms of ‘power sharing’ and multiracial decision-making structures, the Conservative Party (CP) of Andries Treurnicht both capitalized on – and indeed enflamed – fears that the white Afrikaner way of life was under threat. The CP promised to fight for continuing social and political segregation, and staged a pitched battle against NP politicians throughout the decade. Nowhere was this battle fought more vociferously than in the northern Transvaal. 

In this chapter (a work in progress), I examine how local municipalities of the region were drawn into these battles and directed the course of political change towards a rigid conservatism in localities. In particular, I consider developments at the Potgietersrus Municipality, which came to be dominated by CP Councillors fighting tooth-and-nail for the maintenance of a ‘whites-only’ town. This work forms one of the opening chapters of a dissertation covering the transition to democracy as it unfolded in the area that today falls under the Mogalakwena Local Municipality.

Biography

Joel Pearson is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at the Wits University. He has a fellowship with the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) and is an associate of the History Workshop. Prior to doctoral research, Joel conducted research on local municipalities in Limpopo Province as part of a team of researchers at PARI, publishing work on the Mogalakwena and Lephalale municipalities.

Join meeting from 13h00. Seminar starts promptly at 13h15

This seminar will take place via the videoconferencing software, Zoom
Register at the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMlc-GgqjgvHtBQe3F2LDzQn_QK4mDUtfa8
You will then be sent an email with confirmation and instructions on how to join the webinar

 

Panellists:

• Professor Abdallah Daar, DOHaD Africa and University of Toronto │ Is the Covid-19 risk to people with chronic non-communicable diseases getting the attention it needs in Africa?
• Distinguished Professor Lenore Manderson, Wits School of Public Health │ Why the importance of the continued care of people living with other lifelong medical conditions must be continued and strengthened within the context of the swing of attention and resources to Covid-19

Moderation and response: Dr Lisa Ware, DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development and MRC-Wits Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit.

For the past decade, in a project titled "The Lost Men", South African artist Paul Emmanuel has challenged conventions around war memorials. He has questioned which soldiers are memorialised and which erased, and the stereotypes around soldiers and masculinity. In contrast to accepted practices where war memorials are erected using robust, permanent and immovable materials such as granite, he commemorates the forgotten using his own transient and vulnerable body to transform himself into a living, but temporary war ‘anti-memorial’ or ‘counter-monument’