Browsing by Author "Nambadi, Aaron"

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    The Kavango legislative council
    (University of Namibia Press, 2015) Nambadi, Aaron
    The Bantustan policy, as implemented by the South African colonial government in South Africa and later in South West Africa (Namibia), served different social, political and economical purposes. After the victory of the National Party in 1948, the colonial government of South Africa embarked upon the strategy of separate development for the different ‘native nations’. The Bantustan system fragmented the African majority population in South Africa and South West Africa into groupings along ethnic lines (the ‘divide and rule’ strategy). The strategy entailed the actual granting of homerule and then self-determination and eventually independence to a few African ethnic states, the homelands. The introduction of homelands for the majority of the African people promoted controlled political and economic opportunities in the Bantustan peripheries, which would be sufficient to entice an emergent African beneficiary class into collaborating with South Africa in the control and suppression of the subordinated population, without simultaneously providing the class with sufficient muscle to become a significant competitor for power. It might be argued that the success of Namibia’s liberation struggle was also dependent upon the failure of this alternative political framework. However, the existing historiography has largely ignored the internal political dynamics of the homelands, whilst the relevant literature that does exist has focused mainly on ‛Ovamboland’ (Tötemeyer, 1978; Kössler, 2005; Cooper, 2001) This chapter is drawn from a more extensive thesis that was concerned with examining the Kavango Legislative Council, its constitution, its powers, the role of the traditional authorities within the body, and the legislation passed by the Council.