[PEN-L:841] Re: Zulu and Sioux

[Rosser Jr, John Barkley]

     I would note in the context of this discusssion the 
argument made by Thomas Pynchon in his _Gravity's Rainbow_ 
that the slaughter of Hereros in Deutsche Sudwestafrika in 
the early part of the twentieth century was a dry run for 
the Nazi Holocaust a few years later.
Barkley Rosser
On Tue, 03 Nov 1998 12:24:52 -0500 Louis Proyect 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> (This is a private communication from Patrick Bond that he agreed to share
> publicly with some minor editing.)
> 
> Hi Louis, just a few minor corrections...
> 
> > He is also the co-author of "Township Struggles". 
> 
> editor, merely, of "Township Politics" (but author of Uneven 
> Zimbabwe, which I think might restore your faith in my interest in 
> marxian problems, including the positioning of social and labour 
> movements.)
> 
> > As
> > you will recall, Engels referred to the South Africans as "kaffirs", a
> > racist term. 
> 
> Common lingo in the 1800s, and indeed there was a section of SA known 
> as British Kaffrafria. If you like, I'll send you a quick historical 
> review I did of the Xhosa people's resistance in a particular small 
> town which has famously reinvented itself, but in the much the same 
> image as 150 years ago. It puts much more meat on the marxist bones 
> about articulations of modes of production and the like than what 
> I've found in the Zulu case... Also, my guess is that most of the 
> folk you worked with in Lusaka were ANC exiles of Xhosa heritage, 
> right?
> 
> > South Africa is important to me for two reasons. On one hand, it helps to
> > illuminate the nature of the process that took place in the US. I would
> > maintain that it is utterly impossible to view the Afrikaners as being on a
> > civilizing mission. 
> 
> Ahem, the Boers (as they were known before around 1910) were also 
> colonised (by Brit invaders in the early 1800s), before making their 
> way north on the Great Trek. The Brits' claims to bringing 
> civilisation (eg, prohibiting the Boers from slaveholding) deserve 
> more attention and critique if you are looking at the late 1800s.
> 
> > The reason for this is that the disparity between their
> > small numbers and that of the oppressed black population would make such an
> > attempt laughable. 
> 
> The numbers aren't the issue here, are they? The Rhodesians in 
> Zimbabwe were also outnumbered (far more than in SA) but actively 
> played the game of civilising agent in their own agit-prop.
> 
> > The other reason that South Africa is important is that it helps me to put
> > the Indian wars of the 1870s into the context of what was taking place
> > globally: the consolidation of imperialism. From the 1870s to the end of
> > the century, Great Britain and the United States were in the process of
> > bringing large portions of Africa, Asia and Latin America into their
> > spheres of influence. 
> 
> The really big fight, of course, in Berlin in 1885, was between 
> Britain, France, Portugal and Germany. There's a terrific analysis of 
> this in a paper on uneven development and the role of the City of 
> London, in a paper by Ian Phimister that I have summarised and 
> expanded upon a bit in Ch2 of Uneven Zimbabwe.
> 
> > The Afrikaner regime in South Africa was closely
> > linked to the interests of the imperialist powers, despite the occasional
> > war. 
> 
> No man, they would definitely not see it this way. The Anglo-Boer was 
> a very serious anti-imperialist struggle by Boer peasant and 
> petty-administrative stock. This is important as the centenary of the 
> war approaches next year. There is a movement of progressives here 
> who want to remind people of how widespread the opposition to British 
> imperialism (and the British bankers who were truly on the front line 
> of oppressing Afrikaner peasants, as many studies show). That 
> "gigantic devilfish" (as the Broederbond called), the Standard 
> British Chartered Bank, had to drop British from its name in the 
> 1880s. Again, I have references to this anti-financial character of 
> Boer anti-imperialism (which I also talked about at the Brecht Forum 
> when I met you a year ago) in Uneven Zimbabwe, and in a chapter 
> in a book called Money, Power and Space (Blackwell, 1994, edited by 
> Corbridge et al).
> 
> > Cecil Rhodes is the symbol of this process. One of the things that 
> > has not gotten the attention it deserves is how important the wars
> against the
> > American Indian were as well in this process. The Spanish-American war and
> > Wounded Knee go hand in hand. My goal is to show that what was being
> > consolidated in the last quarter of the 19th century was not some shining
> > citadel on the hill, but a vampire monster that sucks blood everywhere it
> > goes.
> > 
> 
> Fair enough. I think linking the political dynamic to the 
> accumulation cycle is also a useful exercise, as I've noted above. 
> Let's stay in touch on it and I'll see if there's anything else from 
> SA that might parallel your work...
> 
> Thanks for the references. I'm a very very minor figure here, of 
> course. Afficionados of the African Communist (the SACP journal) 
> would dispute your attribution of debate as the main journal to the 
> ANC's left!
> 
> Yours,
> P.
> 
> Louis Proyect
> (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
> 

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]