Ordinary Springboks : white servicemen and social justice in South Africa, 1939-1961
Neil Roos (Author)
"'Springbok' was a term used to describe the 200,000 white South African men who volunteered to serve during the Second World War. Volunteers developed bonds of comradeship, and rites of passage were expressed in the idiom of 'the front'. Without exception, volunteers nurtured hopes for some form of post-war 'social justice'. Neil Roos provides a fresh approach in considering comradeship and social justice ethnographically, as a way of focusing on ordinary Springboks' expectations and experiences during and after the war. As troops were demobilized, the contradictions of social justice in a colonial society were exposed
History
1 online resource : illustrations
9781351152020, 9781351152037, 1351152025, 1351152033
1022560907
Contents: Preface; Bullsheet and brass tacks; White men and racial boundaries in pre-war South Africa; Big words and little stories; White servicemen and the army education scheme; Trade union of the ranks: the Springbok legion and social justice; The Helwan riot and the beginning of white ex-servicemen's disillusionment; 'Jannie promises,' white veterans and the struggle for social justice; The rise and fall of the torch; Beyond the politics of whiteness: the Springbok legion, the congress of democrats and the movements for national liberation; The end of ex-service politics? The MOTH and the study of racist culture; Conclusion: white veterans and whiteness in South Africa; Selected bibliography; Index.