Description
Book SynopsisArgues that the historical primacy of youth politics in Limpopo, South Africa has influenced the production of generations of nationally prominent youth and student activists - among them Julius Malema, Onkgopotse Tiro, Cyril Ramaphosa, Frank Chikane, and Peter Mokaba. In 2015 and 2016 waves of student protest swept South African campuses under the banner of FeesMustFall. This book brings an historical perspective to the recent risings by analysing regional influences on the ideologies that haveunderpinned South African student politics from the 1960s to the present. The author considers the history of student organization in the Northern Transvaal (today Limpopo Province) and the ways in which students and youth in this relatively isolated area in the north of South Africa have influenced political change on a national scale, over generations. Organized around the stories of several key political actors, the book introduces the reader to critical spaces of political mobilization in the region. Among the most prominent is the University of the North at Turfloop, which played an integral role in building the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) in the late 1960s and propagating Black Consciousness in the 1970s. It became an ideological battleground where Black Consciousness advocates and ANC-affiliates competed for influence in the 1980s. Turfloop has remained politically significant in thepost-apartheid era: it was here in 2007 that Julius Malema stumped for Jacob Zuma's ascension to the presidency during the ANC's pivotal party conference that resulted in the ousting of Thabo Mbeki. The final two chapters address Malema's political ascension in regional branches of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and the ANC Youth League. Anne Heffernan is Assistant Professor in the History of Southern Africa at Durham University and a Research Associate of the History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand. She is Co-editor of Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto '76 (Wits University Press, 2016). Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland): Wits University Press
Trade ReviewHeffernan brings to the fore the rural and peripheral histories that have been marginalized in the national story of struggle.. The polity and the social structure of South Africa become more comprehensible, for this book aids, abets, and complements the reader in enriching the understanding of the past, present, and future of this nation at the southern tip of the African continent. * AFRICAN STUDIES QUARTERLY *
[T]he book is an important contribution to the study of South African youth politics, offering a view of BC and Charterist politics from the perspective of the often-overlooked rural North. Drawing on twenty interviews and a range of archival sources, especially the rich material at the Wits Historical Papers Archive, Limpopo's Legacy spans the apartheid-post-apartheid divide to offer insights not only into the roots of South African politics, but into the contemporary period, too. * Africa Today *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Turfloop, Crucible of Change Centre of the Storm Africanisation: The New Face of Turfloop Black Consciousness in Decline Congresses and Comrades Populism and the New Youth League Julius Malema and Youth Politics in the New Limpopo Epilogue: Legacies of Limpopo
