Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-apartheid Struggle by Dlamini, Jacob (2015) Paperback

by Jacob Dlamini

In 1986 ‘Comrade September’, a charismatic ANC operative and popular MK commander, was abducted from Swaziland by the apartheid security police and taken across the border. After torture and interrogation, September was ‘turned’ and before long the police had extracted enough information to hunt down and kill some of his former comrades.September underwent changes that marked him for the rest of his from resister to collaborator, insurgent to counter-insurgent, revolutionary to counter-revolutionary and, to his former comrades, hero to traitor. Askari is the story of these changes in an individual’s life and of the larger, neglected history of betrayal and collaboration in the struggle against apartheid. It seeks to understand why September made the choices he did – collaborating with his captors, turning against the ANC, and then hunting down his comrades – without excusing those choices. It looks beyond the black-and-white that still dominates South Africa’s political canvas, to examine the grey zones in which South Africans – combatants and non-combatants – lived.September’s acts of betrayal form but one layer in a sedimentation of betrayals, for September himself was betrayed by the Swazi police, when he was abducted from his hideout in Swaziland by the apartheid death squad in August 1986. This, then, is not a morality tale in which the lines between heroes and villains are clearly drawn. At the same time, the book does not claim that the competing sides in the fight against apartheid were moral equivalents. It seeks to contribute to attempts to elaborate a denser, richer and more nuanced account of South Africa’s modern political history. It does so by examining the history of political violence in South Africa; by looking at the workings of an apartheid death squad in an attempt to understand how the apartheid bureaucracy worked; and, more importantly, by studying the social, moral and political universe in which apartheid collaborators like September lived and worked. This is not a biography – a cradle-to-grave account of September’s life – even though it does, where necessary, look at his life. September was not the first resister-turned-collaborator. But he was also no ordinary collaborator. That is why his story deserves telling.

Genres: Africa, South Africa, Book Club

Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Sipho Lukhele · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book I read the longest time this year, and perhaps it is because it is a non-fiction book? It was also bittersweet that the death of Eusebius McKaiser happened while I was at least 80 percent into the book. He is the one that always spoke about it and the reason the picked it up.

The book tells a story about Glory Sedibe, a former MK member who betrayed his comrades to become an Askari and an apartheid collaborator. What Dlamini tries to do with the book is get into the psychology of Askari's and reasons why they betrayed the fight against the apartheid system, to help the oppressors kill their fellow comrades. Dlamini researched well for the book and to an extent, does paint the picture of how many ended up betraying the struggle. I will say it is a necessary read for all who love history, and those with a lot of questions, especially if their lives were deeply affected by apartheid.

[Mish Middelmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow - a powerful and disturbing way of drawing us into the grey spaces between the hard rights and wrongs of the anti-apartheid struggle. I so loved the days when I knew what was wrong and what was right and never the twain would meet!

Dlamini documents the particular South African way that the world's propensity for chilling abuse manifested during the last decades of apartheid. And he takes us into the part of ourselves that is decidedly unheroic in response to this abuse.

It is scary and it is real. Dlamini is brave and direct in taking us there.

[Tumelo Motaung · Rating 5 out of 5]

The probe & emotion invoked by this on my ankh, immeasurable
An important piece of our political puzzle.
I've recommended this book to every single person I've debated with on the country's political state ever since I read it.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled through this book. I learnt so much and it made me see some parts of Apartheid and the struggle in a different way. It really brings about the nuance and complexity of an askari - when do you actually become one? Who is the person who gives you that title? Is it a morally outrageous thing or pure survival? It was interesting to see how the ANC planned for betrayals, and it's tough to imagine just how difficult it was to trust anyone in those days.

However, this book needed a lot more editing. It read like someone who had learnt so much during research that they just wanted to put everything into the book! I think it would read better if there was a better balance of ideology/conceptual analysis vs storytelling.

[Ryan Wulfsohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jacques Pauw wrote some great reportage on Vlakplaas and the death squads but this excellent book by South African Harvard-based academic Jacob Dlamini is both broader and more focused , history as seen through the prism of one man's life. Dlamini rightly compares aspects of the apartheid regime to its equivalents in the military junta states of Latin America and the communist states of Eastern Europe. He makes clear the brutality , incompetence and delusion as well as the normality, banality and yes, the ambiguity.

[Kev · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

A well researched book that revealed a side of South African history that I knew very little about. It reads a bit more like an academic paper than a history book with a progressing narrative, which is something I wasn't expecting. My only complaint is in regards to that format, because it jumps around a lot. Nonetheless, it's certainly worth reading. I especially enjoyed how the author connected people and their actions in apartheid South Africa to those living in other authoritarian regimes. Very interesting.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very important book -- it dismantles South Africa's Manichean view of politics and explores the gray areas of betrayal in the apartheid era. Nonetheless, I struggle heavily with nonfiction reading so 3 stars it is.

[Mateusz Kasprowicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

best long form journalism ive ever read. super lucid, theoretically minded but brilliantly sharp and to the point. Dlamini has a knack for conceptually sophisticated storytelling and a deep consideration for the paradoxes of retelling the past

[Zanele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I fail to describe how this book makes me feel, I cried at some point.

[Gordon Miskin · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read about the late apartheid period. The introductory chapter in particular is one of the finest analyses of South Africa's recent past that I have ever read.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a person who feels uneasy with easy moral tales, I feel this is one of the single most important books to have come out of South Africa in recent times. I do think it likely that a tortured being could become obedient putty in the hands of those who had tortured him, taking to obedience with a relish for pleasing the master that broke him. do we blame dogs who attack criminals as they've been trained to do by police? no we accept that they are dogs.

nevertheless, I am quite critical off Dlamini's treatment as he seems convinced that humans always have a moral centre, while I think morality is a construct, as is the self, and when a self becomes shattered through torture, it's possible that any moral compass can be damaged beyond repair. from my readings of the court cross examinations of askaris, it seems to me that askaris had lost this compass, they couldn't even make sense off questioning around it, because they couldn't explain it to themselves. yes it could be read as simple deflection, but I think it quite possible that these men were so broken as not to be able to understand questions of motive. furthermore it would be true, that if say their motive was to protect threatened family members, they wouldn't have said this in court as this would have destroyed that protection.

so, I take issue with some aspects of Dlamini's analysis, but I also think he deliberately creates space for that. his approach, in this and other works, is to leave space open for the reader to reflect on morality, ethics etc, without providing comfortable pat answers. this space that he creates for his readers is a unique strength in his writing. he doesn't claim authority which one almost expects of an author ... he openly makes clear that he is no more of a moral authority than the reader...

the empty space he leaves for the reader is uncomfortable - and I think deliberately so, because we shouldn't be too comfortable when reflecting on ethical questions... there should always be that open space of uncertainty, otherwise we become narrow minded and shrill in our claims to know right from wrong.

[Boitshepo · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much history on askaris a.k.a impimpi in this book which makes it a book that reads slowly neh, but it grabs you by the balls(?) and does not release you until it's over. Heck, I'd wake up after two hours' sleep with an urgent need to read on.

Yona it's meant to be the story of Mr. X1, an ANC Comrade who sold out after 9 years of serving as an MK and turned to the side ya security police and 'served' there for 8 years until their unit of askaris was disbanded in 1993.
At the time he was turned, he had for three years been head of Military Intelligence for the Transvaal, so you can imagine how big a fish he was for the Apartheid government. An information tank.

Dlamini asks throughout the book, why anyone who had been selflessly fighting against the Apartheid government, would completely turn and help the then government of the day, to defend and keep Apartheid alive. Some turned through torture, some 'voluntary'.

Dlamini asks from a morals point of view to say, "who does that? And why?"

Very interesting book. The research, But also Dlamini's own voice is not silenced out by the lots of fact in the book. Lots of substories, But told in such a way that the names stick.

I say it is meant to be the story of Glory Sedibe a.k.a Mr. X1, who appeared before the TRC on a of cases - but it is much more than that. Lets you in on the thought process of other askaris who Dlamini got to interview, some of what they got to got to do and other histories.

Most important I think, is how the authors lets one in on just how confounded and ill-organised the whole Apartheid system was.
It wasn't the well-oiled machine that some people still believe it was.

[Lunga · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book in an interesting intervention in so far as it had interesting anecdotes and useful historical facts around collaboration and counterinsurgency. But the answers to some of the question the book set out to answer leave a lot to be desired. Comrade September and his ilk’s ghosts (dead or living-dead) will forever haunt our countries politics. Who among our self-anointed messiahs was a spy or suspected of being a spy? This might be of interest to a lot of people.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

A frustrating book - brilliance marred by sloppy research and lazy analysis. Could have been so much better at peeling this onion! Tales of betrayal always end in tears. The complete failure to address the impact of life experiences while in exile on the choices made is incomprehensible given the effort put into unravelling other influences on Sedibe. An ambitious book tackling a very difficult subject.

[Pale · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book gives an insight into the apartheid South Africa and the lengths which individuals and the government went to ensure blacks remain oppressed. The only thing that I found irritating about the book was the number of characters, I battled to keep up with all the names at times.

[Lulu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the book tries to highlight what the 'Askaris' went through, it does not give conclusive answers.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a lesser known history of South African Apartheid and leaves the reader questioning much that has been taken for granted in the 'rainbow nation'.

[Tumelo Motaung · Rating 5 out of 5]

The probe & emotion invoked by this on my ankh, immeasurable
An important piece of our political puzzle