The Unspoken pain of White Youth that fought for Apartheid

[KK20]

The legacies of apartheid in South Africa can only be understood by making sense of the complexities of the past. This includes recognising what those who were young during the apartheid era - and who are now the elders and leaders of our society - experienced during that time.

In the roughly 30 years between the Sharpeville massacre and the 1994 democratic elections that ended apartheid, a generation of Southern Africans faced challenging and often conflicting choices about ideological allegiances.

For young white boys, the end of their school careers came with a choice about responding to the “call-up” to the South African Defence Force (SADF). This system of military conscription was instituted in 1957 by the apartheid government and became compulsory from 1968 onwards.

Military conscription was key in the apartheid state’s “total response” to what was construed as a “total onslaught” by the perceived threats of communism and African nationalism. The state tried to draw white society into supporting this campaign by invoking a generations-long tradition of men doing military service to protect their country, values and families.

The end of apartheid meant this was the last generation of white South African and South West African (now Namibian) families to send their young men off to war in such large numbers. The very different dynamics of contemporary South Africa make it hard to understand the scale of pressure these young men experienced at home, in many churches and in most social and political domains. White South African society was politically conservative and deeply invested in protecting its interests. Democratic notions such as freedom of choice were almost unheard of. Calls of duty and service were paramount.

The impact that the system of conscription had on the roughly 600,000 white men, or 7.1% of the roughly 4.2 million white people in South Africa in 1992, who became both pawns and agents of the apartheid state, has seldom been publicly acknowledged in post-apartheid South Africa.
Duty and conscience

Those who accepted the call-up received rigorous military training, followed by deployment in South Africa, Namibia or Angola for the rest of their period of service. After that came several years of annual short-term “camps”. Over the 25 years that conscription was in place, service increased from nine months to a total of 720 days including camps.

Military combat was rare until 1975, when the SADF invaded Angola after its Portuguese colonial government collapsed. This initiated 14 years of what became known as the “Border War”, consisting of intense military and guerrilla warfare in northern Namibia and southern Angola.

There were harsh consequences for those who disobeyed the call-up. Their choices? A court martial and up to six years in prison, exile in another country or going into hiding in South Africa.

University studies could delay military service, and some men exploited this for as long as possible. Conscientious objection (on religious rather than moral ethical or political grounds) became a legal option in the mid-1980s – around the time the End Conscription Campaign was established and began public campaigns in support of conscientious objectors as well as calling for an end to conscription.
The war comes home

White South African society lived in almost complete ignorance about the scale of the war and the SADF’s strategies. Most conscripts said little about what they experienced. This was partly because they had to sign the Official Secrets Act upon joining. It was also the result of the “willed ignorance” of most white South Africans and the draconian censorship laws of the time.

In the mid-1980s, anti-apartheid resistance within South Africa intensified and SADF soldiers were deployed domestically. Suddenly, young white men were being called on to police fellow citizens by patrolling the racially defined borders between segregated communities. The “Border War” had come home.

The unsustainable nature of the morally and economically bankrupt apartheid system became increasingly evident, even to apartheid’s leaders who initiated discussions with the then banned African National Congress (ANC) during this time.

The ramifications were widespread. The war in Namibia and Angola ended with the 1989 withdrawal of the SADF from Namibia. Namibia gained independence a year later. The ANC and other organisations were unbanned, political prisoners released and the negotiations that led to the 1994 elections got under way.
1994: A new era

Conscription was officially disbanded in 1995, as was the SADF. A new integrated army was established - and conscription slipped into the realms of silence and memory for most people. For conscripts themselves, the memories of their time in the military haven’t faded. Some have embraced the possibilities of new freedoms while others have fought to maintain and celebrate historical identities in a changed context.

There have been some efforts by the public and civil society to recognise the complexities of conscripts’ experiences, being both victims of a system and perpetrators in its name. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission held a special hearing on conscription. Increasing numbers of books about and by conscripts have been published. And several groups such as veterans, some NGOs and the Legacy of Apartheid Wars Project at Rhodes University have done some work around the issue, mostly in the form of research, public dialogues and workshops to address issues of woundedness and trauma - for conscripts and those who fought against apartheid.

However, for the majority of conscripts, the [discursive laagers](http://www.researchgate.net/publicat...e_Border_Wars) that have shaped their social positioning remain intact. Most of the trauma they might have experienced remains unspoken or manifests in aggression, particularly when dealing with people, groups and situations they perceive to be a threat in some way.

As the more complex dimensions of our apartheid history begin to emerge, the healing and transformative possibilities of stories about conscription surfacing in the public domain should not be underestimated - especially as a way of making sense of our deeply racially divided society.
https://images.theconversation.com/f...w=926&fit=clip



(Theresa Edlmann

Post-doctoral fellow in History, University of South Africa )
Theresa's research interests revolve around the storied nature of personal and social identities, histories and change. The focus of her doctoral research was the psychosocial legacies of apartheid era violence, and the system of compulsory conscription of white men into the South African Defence Force in particular. Over many years of both applied and academic work, her strongest curiosity has been how narratives of meaning-making and identity evolve over time when dealing with legacies of political, personal and systematic violence.

[BandK]

Thanks for the post


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[Proudprado]

I don't remember much pain. I do remember shooting every bloody sort of gun in the country. And braaiing on loodhout at the Pafuri gate. And massive fights on the rugby field between 1 and 2 SAKK. Long, long train rides. Silly corporals and quite serious officers. I would not give up that memories for a whole lot of money. A whole lot. Sure it was shit at times. It good times outweighed it by far. Did it change me? Sure. But for the better.

[A-R]

People who did not serve in the military at the time (i.e. under the old NP regime) will probably never know exactly what went on in the military. Some of the statements made in the article reflect a lot of ignorance. For example:

There was no racial segregation in the army while I served there. There was also not much love or sympathy for the politicians (or party) in charge of the country at the time. All the soldiers (that I worked with) did share a love of our country. Patriotism was not something that was created by political propaganda. It may have been esploited by the regime.

I rubbed shoulders with soldiers form all kinds of ethnic groups. We even had some "rooinekke" in the platoon! Some of the finest soldiers and humans were the soldiers from 32 Battalion that I worked with.

Yes, soldiers of somewhat similar cultural backgrounds were grouped together during the first part of training. When all were disciplined soldiers, they were deployed according to skills etc, not ethnicity. Racial discrimination was strictly forbidden. Any racist remarks would have resulted in severe disciplinary action, unlike the current state of affairs.

The pre-94 army I served in had shed racial policies long before the politicians got the idea. I also had no issues with the post-94 SANDF. Well, not untill the "former" terrorists got into key positions, then everything went downhill. And that was because they brought their political and racial agendas into the military, in stead of just being good soldiers.

I can only wonder where the good doctor got her information from...

[Ds J]

The winner writes history. People get lied to. Somewhere along the line someone always gains something - usually money. There are some of the rules of mankind. Call me a cynic.

I grew up during the Bush War - we had security drills at school and were conditioned to fight on the border. We were called up for service at sixteen but got away because we were still at school.

Afterwards we came to learn how many lies were told on all sides - at least the ones we know about; we came to learn how much was misused and stolen etc. And we cannot guess how much has been stolen since. It leaves me with a feeling that I have been lied to all my life - first by a white government and now by a black government. It leaves one with a bitter taste regarding politics and a healthy scepticism regarding politicians.

Somehow these things remind me of a poem we did called "Honorable it is..." or something similar - describing the atrocities of war which are never told.

I agree with A-R that what happened in the field between soldiers and what happened on top between the brass and politicians are different worlds. It is my job listen to those who experienced it.

All this left me with a hunger to know and understand - as a student I spent many many hours behind books and came to a conclusion:

What apartheid was intended to be and what it became and how the Bush War was sold and what it really was are worlds apart.

[Wanderin' Zero]

Eh. I get the sense she's trying to stereotype us all. For a lot of people the army was one great Boy's Own adventure. Or summat like that.

Incidentally, nobody who didn't want to was forced to carry a rifle. You could do basics with a brick instead of a rifle and were then assigned to a non-conflict role (admin, cook, etc). Only those who refused to even do that ended up in prison camp, eg the Jehovah's Witness'. I remember their camp well. They had blue overalls / uniforms and spent their days working out with weights outdoors and as a result were all in great physical shape.

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[vinmarvin]

Ds J, I think we had to register for military service at 16 and then received our call up papers in Matric (most turning 18) hence we were exempt while at school. At least that's how I remember it

[Ds J]

Ds J, I think we had to register for military service at 16 and then received our call up papers in Matric (most turning 18) hence we were exempt while at school. At least that's how I remember it

Might very good be how it happened. I just remember getting the white letter in a brown envelope with my name on it. We gave it to the head master and he got us out of it. It was explained to us that these were our papers to report for service.

One or two of our class seriously considered going. I would not have minded going but it is very good that I opted out because army life would most probably have changed my very much.

To add to my previous post - I think there are MANY MANY untold stories of bravery, brutality, hate, companionship, etc since 1902 which will never be heard. I do hope that the current situation will change soon. I also hope that when there is a chance to build something ouf of the ashes of our current dilemma, that the people will at last have learnt valuable enough lessons to realise that the community is more than a bunch of individuals.

[Wanderin' Zero]

Yes. You registered in Std 7 or 8. Filled in the forms at school. Then in your final year you'd get the brown envelope telling you where you'd been allocated etc.

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[Shigawagga]

.......There was no racial segregation in the army while I served there. There was also not much love or sympathy for the politicians (or party) in charge of the country at the time. All the soldiers (that I worked with) did share a love of our country. Patriotism was not something that was created by political propaganda. It may have been esploited by the regime....

Agree with this. As a COIN unit policeman, our platoons were mixed. Lived in tents, patrolled and fought together. The fight was against "the great communist threat" as the NP led us to believe. Only when we got back home did the apartheid system/laws become reality again. My mom was horrified when I invited a black comrade for a braai at our home after returning from a 3 month border stint. Opened my eyes a bit.....