Biography and History in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This empirically rich book joins a growing group of scholarly works that probe the ‘ un-national ’ char-acteristics of Southern Africa ’ s wars of decolonization by examining the experiences of Black members of apartheid South Africa ’ s security forces, who fought on South Africa ’ s side in Namibia ’ s war of decolonization and the Angolan civil war. Bolliger engages an interdisciplinary literature on soldiers and police in Africa and elsewhere and traces how rank-and-file Africans ’ experiences of training and drill, racial hierarchies, and their units ’ mission and ideology shaped disparate military cultures. What results are what he calls ‘ un-national ’ histories that challenge popular understandings of these wars as struggles for ‘ national liberation ’ . Such interpretations remain prominent in popular and academic discourses in and about Southern Africa and, in particular, Namibia. 1 Bolliger engages the literatures of ‘ un-national ’ liberation and African soldiers and police together to original effect. Like historiographies of intermediaries and the ‘ middle ground of colo-nialism ’ , ‘ un-national ’ histories examine individual experiences and motivations that run against the binary framework of resistance and collaboration. the ‘ un-national ’ ,