In this video Gavin continues to tell us about the role of NUSAS. An important debate was raging. Should lefty white students serve in the South African Defence Force (SADF)? (By law all white South Africans were conscripted.) Auret van Heerden, the then head of NUSAS consulted on the issue, including apparently Thabo Mbeki – who told him they should serve. It was called strategic participation. Fascinating stuff.
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Related deployments:
I unfortunately did do military service. I was amongst the last group of white school leavers to be conscripted for two year’s military ‘service’ and entered the SADF (SA Wah…) in January 1989. I was fortunate to have been born just late enough to actually ‘miss out’ on active border duty. My training was at a so-called ‘fighting unit’ (SA Armoured Core, Armoured School – TEMPE, 61 Mech). The ‘fighting unit’ meant that there was no question that we would be deployed to the border, the question was simply when… and then the war ended.
Believe it or not, us 19 year old ‘soldiers’ were in fact disappointed after having been psyched up during a year of training, deployment to the army’s battle school near Luathla (?), etc. Today I’m eternally greatfull that I never did ‘border service’. To my great relief, as part of a tank unit (‘Elephant’ battle tanks), we were also never deployed to the townships – although at one stage we were placed first on 36-hour standby, then 24-hour, etc. until we reached 6-hour standby… That’s probably when I most clearly understood what a dilemma I was facing as a ‘liberal’.
Liberal should of course be interpreted here in the Afrikaner context… I was called a ‘K…. boetie’ at school, was involved in endless arguments about the injustice or not of Apartheid, ending segregation, etc. Yet, I somehow thought the police were the bad guys when it came to township patrols, etc. (bunching people into ‘vangwaens’ and so on) whilst the army was the professionals maintaining impartiality and …wait for it… respected by township residents.
Of course I came to these ideas from fellow Afrikaners, not township dwellers. Ironically enough, these influences were from Afrikaners who genuinely wanted to see the end of Apartheid – even if it was from within the establishment.
All the above is an intro to a simple question and is, I suppose, a way of stating that while my question may suggest otherwise, I in fact did military service in the Apartheid army (shucks…). I plead ignorance, although I fully realise that it is not quite sufficient!
To get to my question, after the above submission. Having been exposed to Nussas at Tukkies during my years as student journalist in the early 90′s, I’m flabbergasted at the idea that its leader could phantom that there could be any sense in doing military service??? What was that about? Was he spying on the inner workings of the army? Trying to influence his fellow conscripts? What on earth lay behind that?
Ok, I re-read your intro Wessel. “strategic participation”. What on earth was “strategic participation” supposed to achieve? It is indeed fascinating…