Browsing by Author "Pillay, Surendren"

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    Christianity, education and African nationalism: an intellectual biography of Z.K. Matthews (1901-1968)
    (University of the Western Cape, 2013) Nombila, Ayanda Wiseman; Bank, Andrew; Pillay, Surendren
    My study begins by looking at the ways in which ZK Matthews has been remembered. I raise questions about his legacy in the post-apartheid period, in relation to the limited ways in which he has been studied and in relation to the broader politics of memory. What follows this is an analysis of ZK�s political and educational writings, as a new way of thinking about his intellectual contributions to nationalist thought. Chapter one of this thesis will raise questions about the legacy and memory of ZK in the postapartheid moment. I analyze both the popular and the scholarly representations of ZK as have been attempted by people and organizations to remember him. The popular representations of ZK have been produced by the University of Fort Hare, through an exhibition of his life and legacy and an Annual Memorial Lectures. ZK we must recall, was once a student, a lecturer and Rector of the university. On the scholarly side there is only one existing attempt to produce an auto/biography, one by ZK himself and edited with memoirs by Monica Hunter Wilson. The name of the book is Freedom For My People published in 1981. I analyze the circumstances of the production of this book. And secondly I point out that the interest here was on the liberal-Christian view of ZK. It focused on ZK�s relationships with people of different kinds, his service at Fort Hare and the public society, and the ANC. I also provide an analysis of two seminar papers by Paul Rich (1994) and Cynthia Kros (1990), and one long essay by William Saayman (1996). All these studies so not attempt to produce a discourse on the nationalist thought of ZK, rather they focus on limited archival work and they rely on the ambit of liberalism and Christianity to understand ZK.
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    Colonisers to Colonialists: European Jews and the workings of race as a political identity in the settler colony of South Africa
    (University of the Western Cape, 2020) Hunter, Mitchel Joffe; Pillay, Surendren
    This thesis explores the shifting racial identification and politics of the emerging Jewish community in Southern Africa between the Anglo-Boer War in 1902 and the Union of South Africa in 1910. Through an investigation of their actions and thoughts on the cultural, economic, linguistic and political aspects of their lives, I show how the emerging Jewish community formed itself through the political subjectivity of White settlers. Understanding how racial categories were being amalgamated and partitioned in that period of state formation, I argue that the mainstream Jewish community colluded with the colonial state to join into the ?unity of the White races?. I use Memmi?s (1967 [1957], pp. 19,45) analytic distinction between ?coloniser? ? a European on African land - and ?colonialist? ? a coloniser who supports colonialism and believes in its legitimacy - to examine how the process of subject formation is articulated through the political economy of racial capitalism and settler colonialism. When Jews from Eastern Europe (Yidn) began arriving in South Africa in the 1880s, they faced a settler population which simultaneously treated them as members of an undifferentiated European settler population, as candidates for assimilation into colonial Whiteness, and as dirty subjects under threat of colonial state violence. Though there were other possible responses to the colonial relationship that Yidn could have taken, such as linking the fight against antisemitism with other anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles, the community went through a process of colonialist refashioning. To understand this transformation, I focus on four aspects of life. Culturally, Yidn were classed as dirty subjects and Jewish communal institutions worked with the state to ?clean?, i.e. ?Whiten? them up. Economically, Jews of all class positions learnt the exploitative practices of settlers in racial capitalism. Linguistically, Yiddish became classified as a European language by utilising racial hierarchies. And politically, Yidn became citizens by embracing the ideology of a White-only franchise. Focussing in on these processes of assimilation into power, I argue that the primary Jewish communal institutions embraced and internally enforced a colonialist political subjectivity. This thesis is based on archival research conducted in three archives in Cape Town carried out between February and May 2019, and extensive reading of previous historical studies to write a new narrative from previously known sources.
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    Gentrification: The case of property development in the inner-City of Cape Town
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Mvimbi, Thuthuzelekani; Pillay, Surendren
    This research focuses on property developments that are gentrifying the inner-city of Cape Town and questions why and how the City of Cape Town (COCT) is gentrifying the inner-city. This research examines the role of the COCT in property developments that are occurringin Salt River, Woodstock, and Bo-Kaap. The study used the qualitative research method and an exploratory research design. The study is significant because the conceptualization of this dissertation is rooted in political philosophy, and it applied the instrumental state theory to the casestudy. This theory was applied to the case study to unravel urban politics by demonstrating ways in which the state manages the urban centrum through implementing policies that are aimed at creating economic, spatial, and infrastructure developments.