Armies and Identities in Southern Africa

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 aca-demic 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 colonialism ’ , ‘ un-national ’ histories examine individual experiences and motivations that run against the binary framework of resistance and collaboration. the ‘ un-national ’ , Although Bolliger does not answer all these questions, his work sets an agenda for scholars look-ing to challenge the assumptions, geographical parameters, and perhaps periodization of conflict in Namibia, Angola, and South Africa in the second half of the twentieth century. He paints a vivid picture of the ‘ vast and uneven “ middle ground ”’ of colonialism, engaging the historiography of African intermediaries by showing that there were not just two sides — African and colonial — but many. 8 Given the historical divides that Bolliger identifies between northern Namibia and the rest of the country, future studies might examine the experiences of Black former soldiers from central and southern Namibia. Still, by centering the experiences of Black former members of apartheid South Africa ’ s security forces, Bolliger underscores the evidentiary flimsiness of the region ’ s official histories and opens the way for further examination of what Southern Africa ’ s unevenly ‘ un-national ’ conflicts entailed for their diverse actors.