Katanga, Rhodesia, Transkei and Bophuthatswana: four African countries that, though existing in a literal sense, were, in each case, considered by the international community to be a component part of a larger sovereign state through which all official communications and interactions were still conducted. This book is concerned with the intertwined histories of these four right-wing secessionist states in Southern Africa as they fought for but ultimately failed to win sovereign recognition. Along the way, Katanga, Rhodesia, Transkei, and Bophuthatswana each invented new national symbols and traditions, created all the trappings of independent statehood, and each proclaimed that their movements were legitimate expressions of national self-determination. Josiah Brownell provides a unique comparison between these states, viewed together as a common reaction to decolonization and the triumph of anticolonial African nationalism. Describing the ideological stakes of their struggles for sovereignty, Brownell explores the international political controversies that their drives for independence initiated inside and outside Africa. By combining their stories, this book draws out the relationships between the emergence of these four pseudo-states and the fragility of the entire postcolonial African state structure.

This book offers new perspectives on the history of exploitation in Africa by examining postcolonial misrule as a product of colonial exploitation. Political independence has not produced inclusive institutions, economic growth, or social stability for most Africans—it has merely transferred the benefits of exploitation from colonial Europe to a tiny African elite. Contributors investigate representations of colonial and postcolonial exploitation in literature and rhetoric, covering works from African writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Kwame Nkrumah, and Bessie Head. It then moves to case studies, drawing lines between colonial subjugation and present-day challenges through essays on Mobutu’s Zaire, Nigerian politics, the Italian colonial fascist system, and more. Together, these essays look towards how African states may transform their institutions and rupture lingering colonial legacies.

President Mandela's stand in negotiations, before, during and after imprisonment was attainment of universal democratic rights for all citizens in South Africa. His counterpart, President F W de Klerk's condition was protection of minority rights, a position he knew could not be sustained, but he did persuade whites to support it until he in the end capitulated and they also. The result was a peaceful transition to black majority rule, but a great number of Afrikaners accepted the handing over of power without rejecting their apartheid ideology. The Afrikaner's Apartheid Mindset was based on an attitude of superiority and a false belief that apartheid was scripturally justified. Although most Christian churches rejected apartheid as sin, the biggest Afrikaans Protestant Church, the Dutch Reformed Church only did so in 1986. Many Afrikaner Christians still have not personally accepted this truth, thus binding themselves to unfinished reconciliation. Through reconciliation the Afrikaners need to make amends for a century of injustice against blacks whom they refused parliamentary representation. On the other hand, in the previous century of injustice before the Anglo Boer War 1899, British imperialism sought to end the Afrikaners' independence. Black economic empowerment, a means of compensation or redress, may eventually benefit all parties in the new era, instead of being a cause of frustration and complaint.

This acclaimed study surveys the dominant popular and scholarly images of the Israel–Palestine conflict. Finkelstein opens with a theoretical discussion of Zionism, locating it as a romantic form of nationalism that assumed the bankruptcy of liberal democracy. He goes on to look at the demographic origins of the Palestinians, with particular reference to the work of Joan Peters, and develops critiques of the influential studies of both Benny Morris and Anita Shapira. Reviewing the diplomatic history with Aban Eban‘s oeuvre as his foil, Finkelstein closes by demonstrating that the casting of Israel as the innocent victim of Arab aggression in the June 1967 and October 1973 wars is not supported by the documentary record. This new edition critically reexamines dominant popular and scholarly images in the light of the current failures of the peace process.