Anti-colonial and anti-apartheid movements in Southern Africa cast their political projects as a continuation of anti-Fascist movements and military struggles of the 1930s and 1940s. This seminar examines the enduring tradition of anti-Fascist ideas in southern Africa, in which the battles against the regimes of Mussolini, Hitler and Franco had significant ideological impact. It places this sub-continental history in the context of international historical debates about anti-Fascism. This is traced from the perspective of southern African activism against European fascists and their local supporters in the 1930s, through the impact of war-time anti-fascism in 1939-45, to notions of anti-Fascism in the national liberation movements. The seminar looks at how ideas about Fascism, the Second World War and the Holocaust are invoked in South African politics today.

The lead presenter, Professor Jonathan Hyslop, is a Professor of Sociology and African Studies at Colgate University in the US and an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria. He has published widely on the social and economic history of southern Africa, British imperial as well as maritime history. His co-authors/presenters are Professor Kasper Brasken and Professor Neil Roos. Brasken works on the history of international communism and anti-fascism in transnational, transatlantic and global politics and social movements in which he is well published. Roos is Dean of Social Sciences and Humanity at the University of Fort Hare. His research focuses on the social history of race and he has written and published extensively on the anatomy of white everyday life in South Africa.

As contemporary claims of fascism are being made by Russia as part of its justification for invading Ukraine, this seminar promises to raise fascinating discussions about the manifestations of fascism and anti-fascist movements in a southern African historical context. 

Date: Monday, 26 September 2022

Time: 15:00 to 16:30

Venue: Online (ZOOM)

Registration link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcpc-2hqTItGdJ_2UjVqVYXVVFG8LiV8cd1