"I saw a nightmare ⋯": Violence and the construction of memory (Soweto, June 16, 1976)

History and Theory

Volumn 39, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 23-44

  Pohlandt MCCormick, Helena ^a  

^a Carleton College

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0141447154     PISSN: 00182656     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/0018-2656.00144     Document Type: Review

References (48)

1. Lawrence L. Langer, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory (New Haven, 1991), 101
2. Marguerite Feitlowitz, A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture (New York, 1998), xi.
3. Andŕ Brink, "Stories of History: Reimagining the Past in Post-Apartheid Narrative," in Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa, ed. Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee (Cape Town, 1998), 35
4. See also Alessandro Portelli, The Battle of Valle Giulia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue (Madison, 1997), viii.
5. Margaret Atwood, "In Search of Alias Grace: On Writing Canadian Historical Fiction," reprinted in American Historical Review 103 (1998), 1505.
6. John Demos, "In Search of Reasons for Historians to Read Novels ⋯," AHR Forum: Histories and Historical Fictions, American Historical Review 103 (1998), 1528.
7. Brink, "Stories of History," 34.
8. Republic of South Africa, House of Assembly, Debates of Parliament: June 17, 1976, C. W. Eglin and R. M. Cadman (Cape Town, 1976), 9631-9642
9. "The Commission accepts that shortly before the confrontation there were at least six thousand people, but that more were joining their ranks continually." P. M. Cillié, Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Riots at Soweto and Elsewhere from the 16th of June 1976 to the 28th of February 1977 (Pretoria, 1981), 112. Conflicting estimates put the number as high as 12,000 and as low as 1,000, but many students had not yet reached the agreed-upon gathering place
10. Cillié, Report, 132
11. John Kane-Berman, Soweto: Black Revolt, White Reaction (Johannesburg, 1978), 5.
12. Republic of South Africa. House of Assembly, Questions and Replies: 21 January to 24 June 1977 (Cape Town, 1977), 373-374
13. See Kane-Berman's careful analysis of the numbers, Soweto, 27-28
14. Tebello Motapanyane, interview, January, 1977 in Sechaba: Official Organ of the African National Congress South Africa, Volume 11, Second Quarter, 1977, 58.
15. South African Institute of Race Relations, Survey 1976, 58 and 85
16. Carol Hermer, The Diary of Maria Tholo (Johannesburg, 1980), 10. Diary entry August 13, 1976
17. See Maurice Halbwachs, Memory and History, transl. Francis J. Ditter, Jr. and Vida Yazdi Ditter (New York, 1980)
18. Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle, 1982)
19. And the discussion by Susan A. Crane, "Writing the Individual Back into Collective Memory," American Historical Review 102 (1997), 1381
20. Yerushalmi, Zakhor, 116
21. I have borrowed these concepts from Windsor S. Leroke, '"Koze Kube Nini?' The Violence of Representation and the Politics of Social Research in South Africa," University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop, 13-15 July 1994, 11 and 14-21
22. Testimony Sophie Tema. SAB K345, Volume 9, Part 21 (21 September 1976)
23. SAB K345, Volume 140, File No. 2/3, Part 3: Commission Volume 15, testimony of Johannes Marthinus Kleingeld
24. Report on a Medico-Legal Post-Mortem Examination, Post-mortem Serial No. 2492/76, Department of Health. SAB, K345, Volume 99, Part 4
25. Testimony Hans Bukofzer, principal district surgeon of Johannesburg. SAB K345, Volume 141, File Nr. 2/3, Part 5 (Commission Volume 26), 1182-1189
26. Brink, "Stories of History," 37.
27. Post-mortem report 2557/76, Inquest No. 1628/77 (20 June 1977). Statement, Mokonko Thobejane, 2 August 1976. SAB, K345, Volume 99, Part 4
28. Testimony Dr. Hans Bukofzer, 13 October 1977. SAB K345, Volume 141, File Nr. 2/3, Part 5, 1189
29. Albertina Mshudulu, transcript of testimony. SAB K345, Volume 145, File 2/3, 3264. My emphasis
30. Lennox Mlongi, opposition leader of the Urban Bantu Council. Minutes of proceedings, in loco inspection and fact finding mission by the Cillié Commission in Soweto, 7 September 1976. SAB, K345, File no. 2/1
31. Atwood, "In Search of Alias Grace" 1516.
32. Crane, "Writing the Individual," 1381.
33. Nombulelo Elizabeth Makhubu, testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Human Rights Violations, Submissions-Questions and Answers, Date: 30 April 1996, Case: GO/0133, Johannesburg, Day 3, my emphasis.
34. Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (New York, 1989), 23.
35. Stendhal, Vie d'Henri Brulard, quoted in Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory (Chicago, 1992), 55.
36. See Daniel L. Schacter, Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past (New York, 1996)
37. John Kotre, White Gloves: How We Create Ourselves Through Memory (New York, 1995)
38. Halbwachs, The Collective Memory, 52.
39. Patience Tshetlo, interview conducted by the author, tape recording, Johannesburg, June 1995.
40. Lutz Niethammer and Luisa Passerini have a slightly different version of this: "the actual perception must have been far more complex before the observer settled on one particular perspective, and established it in the niche of his memory. " In Memory and Totalitarianism, ed. Luisa Passerini, International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories (Oxford, 1992), I, 13 and 54
41. Tshetlo, interview, 1995
42. Lilli Mokganyetsi, interview conducted by the author, tape recording, Johannesburg, 8 December, 1993
43. Report, 123-124
44. Passerini, Memory and Totalitarianism, 13.
45. Kotre, White Gloves, 150.
46. Schacter, Searching for Memory, 93.
47. Renate Siebert, "Don't Forget: Fragments of a Negative Tradition," in Memory and Totalitarianism, 166
48. Mokganyetsi, interview, 1993