Hlatshwayo, Simphine. (2000) Education and Independence: Education in South Africa, 1658-1988. Reviewed by Robert F. Lawson, Ohio State University

Hlatshwayo, Simphine. (2000) Education and Independence: Education in South Africa, 1658-1988. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 114 pp. $57.95 (Cloth)       ISBN 0-313-30056-9 Reviewed by Robert F. Lawson Ohio State University September 1, 2000           Since the book is something of a testimonial, constructed out of the late author's 1991 dissertation, it needs to be read and appreciated now as a representation of personal stories about liberation in South Africa. This review acknowledges that appreciation.           The first chapter, "Education and the Economy," includes a standard survey of human capital, modernization, dependency, and reproduction theories, the last receiving most attention and leading to the conclusion, following Berman (1979) and Bowles (1971), that the link between the "domination of a nation's economy by foreign interests and the structure of the school system" shows the "hegemonic structure imposed on Africa by the developed world" (p. 25).           The literature here, and elsewhere, is selective for the author's thesis. Although the literature is appropriate to his purpose, to analyze the association of education with hegemony, it does not extensively address sources which might contextualize theory for South African institutions, e.g., H. Adam and K. Moodley, South Africa Without Apartheid (1986), L. Thompson, The Political Mythology of Apartheid (1985), P. Christie, The Right to Learn (1986), F. Wilson and M. Ramphele, Uprooting Poverty: The South African Challenge (1989). It may not have been possible in the preparation of the manuscript to include newer works on education, e.g., Z.P. Nkabinde, Analysis of Educational Challenges in the New South Africa (1997), or the authors in M. Nkomo, Pedagogy of Domination (1990) and P. Kallaway, G. Kruss, G. Donn and A. Fataar, Education After Apartheid (1997), but the absence of current bibliographic reference is worth noting since there has been a flood of work on South Africa since 1991, much of which is based on premises about colonialism, race, European domination and the educational role in reproduction similar to those of Hlatshwayo, and extended to the reconstruction process.           The second chapter, "Education in South Africa, 1658- 1948," begins with a nice two-page section on indigenous education, documented by Castle, Anderson, Laye and Cory. It includes a reference on southern Africa (Ruperti), which leads into a short description of mission schools and then to education in the Union of South Africa. Although historians might question the generality of the section, it is more connected to the succeeding text than is his foray into "the American South Model." While it is a topic that occasionally intrudes into discussions on South Africa, the American South has little comparative reference to South Africa unless it is made institutionally specific, and is in any case treated too briefly and disconnectedly here to be relevant. Similarly the "British and Boer Relationship and its Impact on African Education" stands alone in two paragraphs. The historical dynamics of that relationship are crucial to understanding South African history from 1795, even if not central to Hlatshwayo's thesis. The chapter ends with general reference to early forms of resistance, mainly their slogans and interpreters.           Chapter 3, "Bantu Education," begins two focussed chapters on contemporary educational development in the South African political transition. The Eiselen Commission Report and Bantu Education Acts of 1953, and as amended in 1954, 1956, 1959 and 1961, are described, with some reference to the general philosophy underlying Apartheid policies. Unfortunately, the section on Christian National Education (CNE), which has a kind of morbid fascination for secularist critics, is left unrelated to the role of religion in Boer survival history or to the actual evolution of Apartheid policy. The latter is more directly related to the economy than to religious philosophy, and the allusions to the economy here are simplified by generalizations on the ruling class and on white dominance. Although the author continues to use Marxist references to the economy, his passion is reserved for CNE, even relating it, cautiously, to National Socialist Education in Germany (p. 105), an acontextual comparison. While it is not unusual for Leftist writers to exploit any connection between religion and the Right, the relationship is only linear insofar as it is stipulative, that is, where both religious and political organizations are assigned a prior anti-democratic definition based on a third criterion, in this case, racial separation. The argument is then teleological in the same way that Christian National Education was.           Chapter 4, "Schools and the Political Struggle, 1960-1988," is the central work of the book. It covers systematically the dramatic story of organized educational resistance. Beginning with structural data, including the erosion of "extraparliamentary terrain," the political condition of universities, the role of student organizations, and the documentation of differentials in white and black education (but not that of other groups), he brings us to the inspiring story of black consciousness and people's education. Behind the story are some obstinate questions. He does not reconcile the Apartheid government's role in appointment at universities and the formation of resistance organizations at major universities, like the National Education Crisis Committee at the University of Witwatersrand. The presence of such resistance does not fit with a notion of a singular racist ideology pervading educational institutions. Mention of the NECC is important not only as an instance of formalizing resistance within education in the spirit of the time, but also because of what it symbolized conceptually: a confrontation with the idea of public education which requires a distance from immediate political action. The author's citation of Gramsci (p. 96) is so unrelated to these questions it makes one wonder whose point it is.           Regarding internal politics, the author's dismissal of Inkatha as "vigilantes" and remark that Chief Buthelezi lost a power struggle with the ANC are arbitrary considering the independence and smart politics of Zululand under Buthelezi's direction (see John Kane-Berman, "Inkatha: the Paradox of South Africa Politics," Optima, Feb. 26, 1982, pp. 142-177.) as well as the argument that a rural populist base was more significant than an urban intellectual base in South Africa. Finally, the useful discussion of the attempted de Lange Committee intervention in 1980-81 ends up dismissing the committee's report as "legitimizing the social control function of the state." Following Buckland (1984), who however admonishes reading socio-historical context into the document, "the dominant themes of which were skilled labor shortages and social upheaval," the author concludes the instrumental role of the committee in exploitation, without commenting on the Commission's intention to find an educational alternative to dismantling the economic strength of South Africa in the region. This needs to be examined in hindsight, but it is questionable that South Africa's new economic purpose (after "the myth of human capital theory") has been articulated, and that the goal of accepting assistance from abroad, "provided such assistance is responsive and sensitive to the needs and aspirations of the.... people as perceived by them, and is not intended to undermine the legitimate struggle of the people of Namibia and South Africa" (p. 112), has been uncorrupted.           The final chapter provides a summary of the book. The inclusion of democratic theory, from references to Counts, Dewey and Carnoy, does not contribute much. Freire's name is dropped in for no apparent reason. The Chinese poem is wonderful, but so would be an African poem to the same point. The general discussion on "Developing New Goals" and "Emerging Roles for Teachers" does take us into current questions. It is time to reflect on the resistance, in both South African and universal terms. The experience is rich in international, intercultural, and interracial relations over historical and ideological time. It is rich in suffering and in strength. It shows education as an actor in social change, but mainly as a crippled participant.           The book will be useful to readers without background in the political struggle of the 1980s in South Africa, and who are sympathetic to a vaguely Marxist interpretation. It does not contribute a great deal to the present tasks of social science in regard to political development in southern Africa.           It is tragic that the author did not have an opportunity to set his account against the changes of the 1990s in South Africa. We are indebted to Sandie Hlatshwayo and Harvey Sundima for their work, and devotion, which made his analysis available for our reflections.