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The New States of Southern Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

A Year has elapsed since the granting of independence to Basutoland and Bechuanaland and, on an academic level at least, there appears to be no slackening of interest in the problems besetting the new states of Lesotho and Botswana and the remaining territory of Swaziland which is due to receive independence in 1968. Each of the books considered here contributes in varying degree to our understanding of their prospects in an environment in which internal stresses combine with external dependence upon a powerful neighbour to limit the choices of their governments in many crucial areas of policy.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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References

Page 543 note 1 SirPim, Alan, Financial and Economic Position of Basutoland (London, 1935), Cmnd. 4907, pp. 48–9Google Scholar; quoted by Stevens, p. 40.

Page 543 note 2 Halley, Lord, Native Administration in the British African Territories, pt. V, ‘The High Cornmission Territories’ (London, 1953), p. 138Google Scholar; quoted by Halpern, p. 526.

Page 545 note 1 One interesting similarity between Lesotho and Botswana has been the tendency of the radical nationalist opposition parties to use—in contrast to their earlier hostility—the cause of the traditionalist authorities as a weapon in their struggle against the new, conservative governments in each state. Matante, for example, criticising the proposals for a republican constitution put forward in February 1966, argued that the Chiefs ‘would not have much of a future’ as their powers ‘would be liquidated’. Stevens, p. 157.

Page 547 note 1 ‘When, in recent years, Mokhehle has beaten off, with no holds barred, successive challenges to his leadership in Basutoland, it was with personal experience of such struggles within the African political movement of South Africa.’ Halpern, p. 141.

Page 547 note 2 By this time his party had changed its name to become the Basutoland Congress Party.

Page 547 note 3 A quotation from the joint pastoral letter, The Church and Politics: duties and responsibilities of Catholics in Basutoland, issued during the 1960 elections by the two Catholic Oblate Bishops. Both Halpern and Stevens agree that the document appeared to be an attempt by the Church to influence the course of the election.

Page 548 note 1 In 1963 the B.F.P. merged with the Marema Tlou Party—created in 1958 by Chief S. S. Matete, a former Congress leader, representing the interests of the Paramountcy and many of the leading chiefs.

Page 548 note 2 Cf. Mokhehle and Jonathan, for example: the former a well-travelled nationalist, profoundly influenced by the doctrines of pan-Africanism; his opponent by contrast less articulate and more pragmatic, shrewdly concentrating in the 1965 election on bread-and-butter issues and the critical dependence of his country on South African good will.

Page 549 note 1 ‘the expansion of non-Swazi agriculture and its employment of agricultural workers has tended, at best, to contribute to the maintenance of bare subsistence standards on Swazi farms, or, at worst, to depress them—a similar effect to that which migrant labour has had on subsistence agriculture in Lesotho’. Stevens, p. 250.

Page 549 note 2 Marwick, Brian, The Swazi—an ethnographic account of the natives of the Swaziland Protectorate (Frank Cass, London, 1966).Google Scholar

Page 550 note 1 The Swazi members were to be chosen by acclamation, which in practice meant nomination by the Paramount Chief.

Page 551 note 1 N.B. ‘The government faced a dilemma somewhat unique in the annals of empireshedding. Whereas in other colonial areas, the majority principle provided the immediate justification for each step of constitutional advancement, it could hardly be disputed that, on a strict numerical basis, the Ngwenyama [the Paramount Chief] could claim to speak for the majority. On the other hand, it seemed certain that the future lay clearly with the political parties which, it was further assumed, would soon politicize the masses’. Stevens, pp. 224–5.

Page 551 note 2 Halpern is extremely critical of the conduct of these elections, alleging that nationalist candidates were denied access to the tribal lands by chiefs who intimidated voters by ‘threats of fines, loss of land and even physical harm’; p. 454.

Page 551 note 3 British ambivalence on the plight of individual refugees kidnapped from the territories by South African agents is the most dramatic example of the undignified dilemma that this clash of interest has at times imposed on British policy. Halpern is especially useful here, see pp. 3–51.

Page 553 note 1 This issue is discussed in a forthcoming book by the present author, Lesotho: the politics of dependence, written for the Institute of Race Relations, London.