Browsing by Author "Rassool, Ciraj"
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Item Being / becoming the "Cape Town flower sellers" The botanical complex, flower selling and floricultures in Cape Town(University of the Western Cape, 2010) Boehi, Melanie Eva; Rassool, Ciraj; NULL; Faculty of ArtsThis mini-thesis is concerned with histories of flower selling in Cape Town. Since the late 19th century, images and imaginings of the flower sellers in Adderley Street and to a lesser degree in other areas of the city attained an outstanding place in visualisations and descriptions of Cape Town. The flower sellers were thereby characterised in a particularly gendered, racialised and class-specific way as predominantly female, coloured and poor. This characterisation dominated to an extent that it is possible to speak of a discursive figure of the 'Cape Town flower sellers'. In tourism-related media and in personal memoirs, the 'Cape Town flower sellers' often came to represent both the city and the inhabitants of Cape Town. The images and imaginings of the 'Cape Town flower sellers' can partly be traced back to representations of 'flower girls' in fictional stories, paintings, photographs and film in Europe, particularly in Great Britain. In Cape Town, this European discourse about flower selling developed in a specific way within colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid contexts.Item Biography in and of an archive : the Shelagh Gastrow Collection and South Africa(University of Western Cape, 2012) Kwao-Sarbah, David; Rassool, CirajThis study is about the recent political history of South Africa. It examined the crucial period of late apartheid, through the political transition into democracy. The study was conducted through the lenses of Shelagh Gastrow's work, whose series of publications titled Who�s Who in South African Politics traversed the spectrum of a severely polarised South Africa, and earned her the accolade as a "leading authority" in the biographical enterprise of Who's who. Gastrow had interviewed people in political office, those in opposition, those hiding from political persecution and even those in exile outside South Africa. It involved about 100 personalities for each of her five volumes. The study involved examining archival collections, documentary analysis, desktop research and interviews with Shelagh Gastrow. It also examined the Mayibuye Archives, where the Gastrow collection was eventually transferred, as an archive of resistance to apartheid. The study showed that from its origin as a research project about personalities in South Africa�s resistance and transition history, the Shelagh Gastrow collection was transformed into a heritage resource. The study examined political collections as heritage resources in the process of remaking the nation, and the contributions they make in the national re-engineering process. The study drew on the convergence of two theoretical claims. First, Achille Mbembe, among others, has asserted that there is no state without its archives. An indispensable, symbiotic, socio-political relationship exists between the state, actors in the state, and related archives. The second, posited by the likes of Arjun Appadurai and Igor Kopytoff, is to the effect that objects have social lives, and that they are formed and transformed through interactions with their related societies. Between the objects and their societies, meanings and values are transmitted, exchanged and retained. Thus, a careful analysis of the formation and transformations (a biographical study) of such objects can reveal the obscure about the societies they relate to. Consequently, socio-political collections do reveal much about the individuals, groups, and societies they represent. In the case of South Africa, the analysis showed the corpus of Shelagh Gastrow's collection (the object in this study) which included transcripts of political interviews, manuscripts and Who's who publications, revealed the transition from apartheid into democracy as a critical historical juncture. Political collections constitute important heritage resources, which contribute to the production of national narratives. They may originate in the past, but their analysis in the present has resonance for the collective future of the nation.Item Connectedness and disconnectedness in Thembeyakhe Harry Gwala's biography, 1920-1995: Rethinking Political Militancy, Mass Mobilisation and Grassroots Struggles in South Africa(The University of the Western Cape, 2018) Dlamuka, Mxolisi Chrisostomas; Rassool, CirajThis dissertation is premised on the notions of connectedness and disconnectedness as a contribution to the field of South African biography. I argue that Harry Gwala�s life was characterised by connectedness and disconnectedness and was shaped by his determination to remain connected while the state utilised its coercive power to disconnect him. While South African history has been largely written within the framework of repression and resistance, a study of Gwala�s life enables historians to examine twentieth century history from a different perspective which focuses on themes of connectedness and disconnectedness. Gwala�s rural background, his training as a teacher and his later involvement in trade unionism enabled him to develop and maintain connectedness with grassroots sentiments. In an attempt to disconnect Gwala from these pursuits, he was occasionally tortured and served with banning orders which restricted his movement and political activities. He was imprisoned on Robben Island between 1964 to 1972 and 1977 to 1987. While disconnected by banning orders and constant harassment by state security agents, Gwala continued to retain his connectedness through underground activities and later through his involvement in re-establishing branches of the African National Congress after his release from prison in 1988. This dissertation argues that Gwala was a product of a complex society and varied social milieux which were all characterised by high levels of class deprivation and exploitation. As he meandered through various social milieux he developed a working class political approach which impelled him towards mass mobilisation and opposition to the state�s oppressive notion of race and class. Gwala became a medium to connect various classes and political groupings during the liberation struggle in South Africa. This biography also makes a contribution to the emerging body of literature on the histories of resistance politics at local and national levels in South Africa.Item The construction of public history and tourist destinations in Cape Town's townships: a study of routes, sites and heritage(University of the Western Cape, 2002) Dondolo, Luvuyo; Witt, Leslie; Rassool, Ciraj; Karp, Ivan; Kratz, Corinne; Dept. of History; Faculty of ArtsThis paper seeks to explore a number of issues in relation to tourism, particularly cultural tours, in Cape Town from the apartheid era to the new political dispensation in South Africa. Cultural tourism is not merely about commerial activities. It is an ideological framing of history of people, nature, and culture, a framing that has power to reshape culture and nature for its own needs. In the South African context, this can be seen from the early decades of the twentieth century, but for the purposes of this study it will focus from the 1950s onwards to the present political period. The dominant ideology and political conditions at a given time shape cultural tourism.Item David Cecil Oxford Matiwane and auto/biographic memory: political activism, social pragmatism and individual achievement in twentieth century South Africa(University of the Western Cape, 2016) Ndhlovu, Bongani Cyprian; Rassool, CirajThe main theoretical and empirical interest of this study is the critical examination of the life of David Cecil Oxford (D.C.O.) Matiwane. In it, I critically examine the politics of representing Matiwane�s life and the methods employed in such a discourse. I do this by focusing on the question of representation of political, social and economic struggles launched by D.C.O. Matiwane against segregation and apartheid in South Africa in the twentieth century. This study then questions the notion of creating a biographical supernarrative of his achievements. It confronts the binary approach in the representation of his life and argues that Matiwane�s life is an embodiment of various, even contradictory, philosophies. This study puts forward an argument that Matiwane's representation should be contextualised in relation to the struggles of his contemporaries, and that his narrative should not be seen as a product of a single political route. It unpacks various communal, individual, economic and political strategies employed by organisations and persons against apartheid and colonialism. It looks at how these strategies were implemented to overcome apartheid, and analyses how Matiwane's contribution is documented, especially in relation to contributions made by others. This research project also analyses how different layers and patterns in Matiwane's narrative have been created in an attempt to present his auto/biography as a cohesive discourse in spite of fragmented archival and oral memory. It argues that his memory has been appropriated to pursue different political and personal ends. This study further asks the following question: to what extent and why have different political systems given Matiwane�s voice a platform or silenced his point of view? Are there trends in his representation compared to narratives of his contemporaries? What are the underlying reasons behind such trends, if any? Are there continuities or discontinuities in his representation? What were the ambiguities embedded in their struggles? This study evaluates factors that led to him being declared a persona non grata. It closely examines why and how Matiwane has been represented as a source of controversy, as a lone political activist and as a pragmatist.Item From family business to public museum: the transformation of the sacks futeran buildings into the homecoming centre of the district six Museum(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Hayes-Roberts, Elizabeth Hayley; Rassool, CirajThrough a grant from the Atlantic Philanthropies Foundation the District Six Museum Foundation Trust purchased the Sacks Futeran buildings in 2002 with a view to creating new spaces of engagement that worked with exhibitions, issues of social justice and District Six returnees. The Futeran family, as a gesture of philanthropic donation, sold the building below market value thus enabling the museum to take ownership. This related directly to civic public giving that the work of the District Six Museum entails and was consistent with an understanding of community museums. Acquiring, transforming and museumising the set of five interconnected Sacks Futeran buildings to create the District Six Homecoming Centre has influenced and extended the notion of civic public giving in the museum work of the District Six Museum in relation to District Six returnees and the public. The examination of a history in and through buildings and more specifically the transformation in use, design, purpose and naming in this complex of buildings associated with a family business, E. Sacks Futeran & Co., is the purpose of this research. The oral histories of Martin and Gordon Futeran reveal the origins of their family wholesale clothing and fabric business established in 1906 by their great grandfather Elias Sacks and by extension the Jewish histories of District Six. The apartheid denial of ‘home’ within the Cape Town city bowl, resulting in forced removals of the inhabitants of District Six and the formation of the District Six Museum as a transactive community museum model on the heritage landscape of post-apartheid South Africa is examined. With reference to architectural materiality, the set of buildings as transitional space is ‘mapped’ as it has become the Homecoming Centre of the District Six Museum.Rennie Scurr Adendorff Architects blended older histories of the site with architectural aesthetic and technical expertise, and the Museum’s visions, philosophies and concepts were an integral part of the redevelopment. Over a number of years the Sacks Futeran buildings were restored and internally reconfigured and have been developed to dovetail with existing methodologies supporting the broader land restitution process. Through its spaces, a museum community is being nurtured by means of activism, notions of citizenship transforming District Six, the city and community museum practice in the process. The Fugard Theatre is an integral part of the Homecoming Centre and these buildings are experienced as a multi-functional cultural landmark within the District Six Cultural Heritage Precinct. By harnessing memory and materiality this study is relevant as a means of constituting historical urban fabric and a sensitivity of reconstructing a sense of place.Item Historic buildings, conservation and shifts in social value at Old Umtali: Contestations of heritage in Zimbabwe(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Chipangura, Njabulo; Rassool, CirajThe mini-thesis will examine the conservation of colonial historic buildings at Old Umtali (today Mutare) in Zimbabwe and the changes that have affected the buildings in terms of use and maintenance of their architectural character. There has been a shift in heritage management priorities in Zimbabwe and all heritage linked to colonialism has been supplanted by archaeological and liberation war heritage. The result is that the category of colonial heritage which includes historic buildings, forts and memorials have been neglected and vandalised. Various international frameworks in the conservation of buildings will be referred to in this research in examining related questions of urban heritage management. The dichotomy that exists between conservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings as these issues have unfolded at Old Umtali, a former colonial town with historic buildings constructed in 1891 will be at the centre of this interrogation. Notwithstanding the changes in heritage management priorities in Zimbabwe, the irony is that heritage practitioners are still obliged to conserve historic buildings by legislation. This work then attempts to place back the question of conserving historic buildings on the conservation agenda for a post-colonial Zimbabwe. I argue that historic buildings should be conserved and used for different contemporary purposes and at the same time becoming the subject of interpretative work. Questions can then be asked about the experience of colonialism and the various movements of the Pioneer Column in Zimbabwe using the case study of Old Umtali. In this thesis conservation of historic buildings is not just a technical question but is also seen as an intellectual, epistemological and political question.Item A historical and conceptual analysis of the African Programme in Museum and Heritage Studies (APMHS)(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Morakinyo, Olusegun Nelson; Witz, Leslie; Rassool, Ciraj; Dept. of History; Faculty of ArtsIn 1998 the University of the Western Cape together with the University of Cape Town, and the Robben Island Museum introduced a Post-graduate Diploma in Museum and Heritage Studies. This programme was innovative in that not only did it bring together two universities in a programme where the inequalities of resources derived from their apartheid legacies was recognised, but it also formally incorporated an institution of public culture that was seeking to make a substantial imprint in the post-apartheid heritage sphere as part of its structure. In 2003 this programme attracted substantial funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and was rebranded as the African Program in Museum and Heritage Studies (APMHS). While this rebranding of the programme might seem to be innocently unproblematic and commendable as part of the effort at re-insertion of South Africa into Africa after the isolation of apartheid, an analysis of the concepts employed in the rebranding raises serious theoretical, conceptual, and disciplinary questions for heritage studies as an academic discipline and for its connections with other fields, especially the interdisciplinary study of Africa. What are the implications of a programme that brings together the concepts of 'African-Heritage-Studies'? Does the rebranding signify a major epistemological positioning in the study of Africa or has it chosen to ignore debates on the problematic of the conjunction of the concepts? This study address these issues through a historical and philosophical analysis of the programme, exploring how it was developed both in relation to ideas of heritage and heritage studies in Africa and, most importantly by re-locating it in debates on the changing meaning of 'Africa' in African studies.Item A history and critical analysis of Namibia�s archaeologies(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Gwasira, Goodman; Rassool, CirajThis study critically examines the political, social and institutional settings in which archaeology was introduced in Namibia. I re-examine the idea of archaeology as a scientific and objective discipline that could be practiced without input from the knowledge systems of local communities. Archaeology developed alongside colonialism in Africa. Archaeology became an apparatus for knowing about the strategic resources that could be found in Namibia. Through the processes of recording sites and artefacts archaeology provided information that was useful to the colonial administration.Item The individual, auto/biography and history in South Africa(University of the Western Cape, 2004) Rassool, Ciraj; Bundy, Colin; Dept. of History; Faculty of ArtsThis thesis is a contribution to the field of public history, which the author and others at the University of the Western Cape's History Department have over the last decade pioneered in defining and mapping out in South Africa. Rassool's theories about the relationship between history and biography were developed in relation to the life of the Unity Movement leader, I.B. Tabata.Item Memory and documentation in exhibition-making: a case study of the Protea village exhibition, a history of paradise 1829 - 2002(2008) Baduza, Uthando Lubabalo; Rassool, CirajThis mini-thesis seeks to interrogate the interplay between memory and documentation in the process of exhibition-making by a looking at the preparation for and mounting of the exhibition, Museum. This will be achieved by looking at the institutional methodologies employed by the Museum in dealing with ex-residents of District Six, their memories and artefacts in the heritage practice of a Museum as a forum. This practice was put into effect as the District Six Museum engaged ex-residents of other locations of removal.Item Missing and missed: Rehumanisation, the nation and missing-ness(University of the Western Cape, 2018) Rousseau, Nicky; Moosage, Riedwaan; Rassool, CirajThe bringing together of two lines of research that have previously been treated separately � namely the missing/missed body of apartheid-era atrocities and the racialised body of the colonial museum � animates this issue of Kronos. Both the skeletons of empire and those of apartheid-era atrocities can be thought of as racialised, and as �disappeared� and missing. Furthermore, both areas are marked by similar lines of enquiry, linked to issues of identification, redress and restoration, often framed through notions of humanisation or rehumanisation. Consequently, these different �disciplines of the dead� have been brought into collaboration and contestation with each other, with missingness often reproduced through the ways in which the dead have been drawn into grand narratives of the nation and its seeming triumphs over colonialism and apartheid. Notwithstanding their similarities, the racialised body of the colonial museum and the body of more recent conflicts have their own genealogies and literatures. The �disappeared� entered the political lexicon of terror largely through Argentina and Chile; two decades later Rwanda and Bosnia turned international attention to mass violence and genocide as exemplified by the mass grave. South Africa slips through these grids: apartheid security forces tried but failed to emulate their Latin American counterparts in �disappearing� activists on a large scale, while inter-civilian violence, which mostly took the form of political rather than ethnic, racial or religious cleansing, did not produce mass graves. Nonetheless, both �disappearances� and inter-civilian conflict produced missing persons in the South African conflict � most presumed dead, and thus, as Madeleine Fullard describes them (this issue) �in limbo � dead, but missing.� Investigations into such cases, led first by the country�s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and later by its Missing Persons Task Team (MPTT), sought to locate, exhume, identify and return mortal remains to their families. In so doing, South Africa joined a growing list of countries following this route.Item Political autobiography, nationalist history and national heritage: the case of Kenneth Kaunda and Zambia(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Simakole, Brutus Mulilo; Rassool, Ciraj; Dept. of HistoryThe research for this thesis started off as a long academic essay that sought to review a 1970s biography of Kenneth Kaunda.1 In its original focus, the study aimed at evaluating the work on the narrations of Kenneth Kaunda�s life from a theoretical and critical perspective. Specifically it sought to evaluate the biography for its theoretical and methodological approaches, its attention to issues of sources, archives, narrative and history. In addition, it aimed at locating the biography in relation to debates over biography and history in South Africa. As I began my research for the long essay, it soon became apparent that the biography of Kenneth Kaunda ended its narration in 1964 and yet it was published ten years later in 1974. By ending its �coverage� of the narrations of Kenneth Kaunda�s life in 1964, it seemed obvious that its coverage was in many ways similar to his autobiography that was published in 1962.2 The ending of the biography�s coverage in 1964 thus seemed rather abrupt as it precluded any representations of the subject in the post 1964 period in which he had become President of Zambia. Kenneth Kaunda was resident of Zambia for nearly three decades (1964-1991) having led the �final� phase of the nationalist struggle for Independence through the United National Independence Party (UNIP). Surely, I surmised, the meanings of Kenneth Kaunda�s life as nationalist leader, as presented in most of his biography, would differ from those of him as President? Upon evaluating the biography, it seemed to be a largely chronological and descriptive rather analytical account of the subject�s life. However, what made it profound to me was the ways in which it entwined the narratives of Kenneth Kaunda�s life with the events, dates 1 The biography of Kenneth Kaunda by Fergus Macpherson was the subject of the long essay. See Fergus Macpherson, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia: The Times and the Man (Lusaka: Oxford University Press, 1974). 2 Kenneth D. Kaunda, Zambia Shall Be Free: An Autobiography (London: Heinemann Educational Books td, 1962). and activities of the history of the Zambian nation. Some accounts inadvertently referred to this interconnection by referring to Kenneth Kaunda as the �founder of Zambia�. My exposure to various other debates around the production of history in the public domain such as through museums and national heritage sites or monuments prompted me to consider undertaking a study of the post-1964 historiography of Kenneth Kaunda. Rather than attempting to fill Kenneth Kaunda�s post-1964 historiographical gap with a chronological account of his political life, I wanted to trace the narratives of Kenneth Kaunda�s life in connection with the production of history in different domains in Zambia. This thesis thus aims at examining the political auto/biographical narrations of Kenneth Kaunda in relation to the production of nationalist history and national heritage in Zambia in the years following the country�s Independence in 1964.4 One of the key questions that this study sought to engage with was: how did the �representations� of Kenneth Kaunda influence the ways in which Zambia�s post-independence nationalist history and national heritage were produced? In seeking to provide an answer to the question, the study evaluated the auto/biography of Kenneth Kaunda itself, as well as how it reflects in the history texts utilised in Zambian schools and in history in the public domain through national heritage sites or monuments and museum exhibitions. The thesis will show that in Zambia, the auto/biography of Kenneth Kaunda has acquired significance through history as school lesson and as history in the public domain, through the production of national heritage sites and museum exhibitions.Item Producing and consuming the Wembley Whopper and the Super Fisheries Gatsby: Bread winners and losers in Athlone, Cape Town, 1950-1980.(University of the Western Cape, 2018) Wentzel, Tazneem; Rassool, CirajWembley Roadhouse and Super Fisheries have cemented themselves as food institutions on the Cape Flats. Family-owned take-aways establishments that appeared on the black periphery and catered for the black consumer were popularised amid the political and economic upheavals of forced removals in the 1970s. The shifting labour market, changing work schedules, and hardening political climate was reflected in the popularisation and consumption of breadbased take-aways on the Cape Flats. This research sets out to show how the production and consumption of the Wembley Whopper and the Super Fisheries Gatsby constituted cultural signifiers of agency that were historically embedded within a set of discursive practices and a business ethic that distinguished halal take-aways from franchised and state subsidised food. Ideas of tradition and health became categories through which racial discourse was operationalised by both cultural and scientific agents of the colonial and apartheid state. Nevertheless, the Whopper and the Gatsby represented fast food culinary adaptations that appealed to a mobile generation of activists that challenged social restrictions and ideas about race and diet.Item (Re)collections in the archive: making and remaking the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) archival collection(University of the Western Cape, 2015) Frieslaar, Geraldine Le Anne; Rassool, CirajThe work of the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) conducted between 1956 and 1991 gave rise to a collection of records that traverse 35 years of support work. As a solidarity organisation IDAF provided support to liberation movements in South Africa through their legal and welfare assistance programmes. Equally significant, IDAF also sought to highlight the oppressive machinery of the apartheid government through the deployment of their research, information and publications programmes as a way of creating awareness and �keeping the conscience of the world alive.� When the administrative records of IDAF were relocated to South Africa, with the Mayibuye Centre for History and Culture as chosen location, they were turned into an archival collection which also became a memorial to IDAF�s resistance work located in the foremost anti-apartheid university and politically in a new project that intended to create a museum about apartheid. Later the collection was incorporated into the Robben Island Museum (RIM) through an agreement between the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and the Museum. The dissertation examines the cultural history and the political life of the IDAF archival collection and the processes through which it was made and continues to be remade.Item Social history, public history and the politics of memory in re-making 'Ndabeni'' pasts(University of the Western Cape, 2010) Sambumbu, Sipokazi; Rassool, Ciraj; Dept. of History; Faculty of ArtsItem Southern African human remains as property: Physical anthropology and the production of racial capital in Austria(University of Western Cape, 2021) Schasiepen, Hella Sophie Charlotte; Rassool, CirajFrom 1907 to 1909, the Austrian anthropologist, Dr Rudolf P�ch (1870-1921), conducted an expedition in southern Africa that was financed by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. P�ch enjoyed administrative and logistical support from Austria-Hungary as well as the respective colonial governments and local authorities in the southern African region. During this expedition, he appropriated the bodily remains of more than one hundred people and shipped them to Vienna. When P�ch started teaching anthropology and ethnography in 1910, the remains became an essential part of the first �anthropological teaching and research collection� at the University of Vienna.Item Teaching humanity: Placing the Cape Town Holocaust Centre in a post-apartheid state(University of the Western Cape, 2015) Petersen, Tracey; Rassool, CirajThis dissertation examines the development of Holocaust education in South Africa, specifically in the period of political transition to democracy and the two decades after apartheid. The history of placing the Holocaust in post-apartheid South Africa shows the dynamics and tensions of identity construction by the state, communities and individuals as the country emerged from a history of violent conflict. Holocaust education was claimed by the newly democratic state as a vehicle of reconciliation. Using archival material, interviews and secondary sources, I examine how a minority community�s project of building a permanent Holocaust centre, came to be considered as part of a national project of reconciliation. I consider the impact of this framing of Holocaust education and the tensions that arose as the Cape Town Holocaust Centre�s founders attempted to define and contain, the place of apartheid in Holocaust memory. Holocaust education shaped the development of post-apartheid identities. It contributed to a collective memory of apartheid by suggesting a particular collective memory of the Holocaust. The Cape Town Holocaust Centre provided the South African Jewish community with a legitimate identity in post-apartheid South Africa and a way to bypass an examination of the implications of having benefited from apartheid. I examine the tensions and contradictions within this construction of the collective memory of the Holocaust and apartheid, and consider the implications for the process of justice, memory and history in South Africa as it emerged from apartheid.Item Towards a critical heritage studies(Taylor & Francis, 2013) Rassool, CirajAnna Karlstr�m�s article made me think of the inaugural conference of the International Association of Critical Heritage Studies held in Gothenburg in June 2012. At the conference, heritage scholars and graduate students gathered from around the world�though mainly from Britain, Australia, and Sweden� to discuss key debates in the rapidly developing, wide-ranging field of heritage. The location, the University of Gothenburg, was one of the most prominent sites for the new research field of heritage, as a platform for research and graduate education from about the mid-2000s. The conference was organized through Swedish, British, and Australian international collaboration, with participation by the International Journal of Heritage Studies. The recent careers of two of the main organizers�Laurajane Smith and Rodney Harrison�had seen them circulate between Australia and Britain, and in Smith�s case, to Sweden as well.Item The un/timely death(s) of Chris Hani: discipline, spectrality, and the haunting possibility of return(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Longford, Samuel; Rassool, CirajThis dissertation takes Chris Hani beyond the conventionally biographic by thinking through his multiple lives and deaths and engaging with his legacy in ways that cannot be contained by singular, linear narratives. By doing so, I offer alternative routes through which to understand historical change, political struggle and subjectivity, as well as biographical and historical production as a conflicted and contested terrain. I attend to these conflicting narratives not as a means through which to reconcile the �good� and �bad� sides of history, struggle, or the political subject. Nor to sacrifice either to what Frederick Jameson has referred to as a dialectical impasse: a �conventional opposition, in which one turns out to be more defective than the other�, and through �which only one genuine opposite exists� [therefore sharing] the sorry fate of evil� reduced to mere reflection.�1 Instead I place contested narratives about Hani and the anti-apartheid struggle into conversation with one another, and treat them as �equally integral component[s]�2 of the life and legacy of Hani.