Elites abuse traditions to entrench their power

Nomalanga Mkhize, Business Day

THE "maiden bursary" offered by the uThukela district municipality affirms two points. First, it shows why the principle of constitutionalism is necessary in a pluralist society. By pluralist I mean a society in which many cultural institutions, customs and codes coexist and interact.

We can continuously debate and change the content of that Constitution over time, but a constitution is necessary to act as final arbiter lest we give way to extreme cultural relativism that can legitimise abhorrent practices.

Second, the bursary demonstrated a major ideological faultline of the postcolonial state. Not neocolonialism, but neotraditionalism. By this I mean the tendency of postcolonial political orders to express power and statecraft through a toxic mix of conservative politics, culturalist rhetoric and very masculinised political practice.

Gender, myth, nationalism: Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers

by Mani Sharpe, Open Democracy

Inspired by Yacef Saadi’s account of his experiences as an F.L.N (Front de Libération Nationale) military commander, Gillo Pontecorvo’s seminal 1966 work The Battle of Algiers dramatises Algeria’s struggle for independence between 1956 and 1957, during which the nationalist movement shifted its focus from rural Kabylia and the Aurès mountains to the capital, Algiers.

As the film illustrates, this renewed emphasis upon guerrilla warfare attracted both the attention of the international community and witnessed the increasing participation of women within the conflict, as female nationalists (known asmujahida) were tasked with carrying information and weapons through the besieged city.