Browsing by Author "Shiweda, Napandulwe Tulyovapika"

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    Mandume ya Ndemufayo's memorials in Namibia and Angola
    (University of the Western Cape, 2005) Shiweda, Napandulwe Tulyovapika; Hayes, Patricia; Dept. of History; Faculty of Arts
    Mandume has fought two colonial powers, Portugal and British-South Africa from the time he became king in 1911 to 1917. This thesis looked at the different ways in which Manume is remembered in Namibia and Angola after these countries had gained their independence from colonialism. His bravery in fighting the colonizers has awarded him hero status and he is considered a nationalist hero in both Namibia and Angola. However, he is memorialized differently in Namibia and Angola. The process of emembering Mandume in different ways is related to where his body and head are buried respectively. This is because there is a belief that his body was beheaded, and his head was buried in Windhoek while the rest of his body is buried in Angola. The monument that is alleged to host his head is claimed to belong to him to this day. However, this monument was erected for the fallen South African troops who died fighting him. The author argued that this belief was in response to the need to reclaim a monumental space to commemorate Mandume in the capital city.
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    Omhedi: displacement and legitimacy in Oukwanyama politics, Namibia, 1915-2010
    (University of the Western Cape, 2011) Shiweda, Napandulwe Tulyovapika; Hayes, Patricia; Dept. of History
    This is a study of the contest over political and social legitimacy in a former precolonial kingdom, Oukwanyama, in northern Namibia, from 1915 to the present. It tracks the historical shifts in this long time frame through the history of one place, a site of important local power, Omhedi. The research begins with the colonial occupation of the kingdom by Portugal and South Africa during World War 1, which resulted in the displacement of the kingship to the southern half of the territory which was now bifurcated by an international boundary between Angola and South West Africa. Following resistance by the last king Mandume, the institution of kingship was abolished and a Council of Headmen installed in its place. Omhedi emerged as a site of important opposition to Mandume by a leading headman, Ndjukuma, and he became one of the senior headman elevated to new levels of authority by olonial rule. The thesis tracks the establishment and consolidation of the policy of Indirect Rule under South Africa, whose aim was the efficient supply of migrant labour to the south, and the selective preservation of traditional customs in Oukwanyama in order to maintain stability in a time of rapid change. The main contribution of the research however is to follow this story into the second half of the 20th century, when Ndjukuma was succeeded by Nehemia Shoovaleka and then Gabriel Kautwima, at a time when nationalist opposition to South African rule was growing and old political legitimacies were tested. Omhedi became a site of the enforcement of headmen�s authority over both striking workers and the educated elite in the early 1970s when Ovamboland became a Bantustan homeland under apartheid. After Independence in 1990 and the demise of Kautwima, Omhedi remained empty until the restoration of the Kwanyama kingship occurred under postcolonial legislation on Traditional Authorities. The question becomes one of how political legitimacy can be reactivated at such a contradictory site of �traditional� power like Omhedi, now the seat of the new Kwanyama Queen. The thesis engages with notions of gender, history, landscape and memory, as well as theories of space developed by Lefebvre and de Certeau, in order to understand the local reconceptualisation of Omhedi as different things over different times. It also analyses the textual, visual and cultural representations of the place, most notably under colonial rule, and the impact of this archive (or its limits) on postcolonial political developments