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Swaziland: Decolonisation and the Triumph of ‘Tradition’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

Any consideration of the process of decolonisation must be primarily concerned with the question of to whom power was transferred. Who inherited the colonial state and how did they establish their claim? The basic thesis of this article is that in order to understand the nature of the post-colonial state in Swaziland it is necessary to look back at least as far as the 1930s, and to trace the roots of Swazi ‘traditionalism’, the ideology which triumphed over competing forms of African nationalism during the 1960s.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

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page 657 note 1 Hailey, op. cit. pp. 409–13; and Kuper, Sobhuza II, p. 183.

page 657 note 2 They included Prince Makhosini Dlamini and Mfundza Sukati.

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page 662 note 2 Statement by Dr H. F. Verwoerd in the House of Assembly, Cape Town, 4 May 1959, reprinted in Bantu (Pretoria), September 1959, pp. 59–62.

page 662 note 3 Halpern, op. cit. p. 437.

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page 665 note 1 Constitution of Swaziland, Act 50 of 1968, section 135.

page 665 note 2 Fransman, loc. cit. pp. 76–80.

page 666 note 1 Davies, O'Meara, and Diamini, op. cit. pp. 50–70.

page 666 note 2 Ibid. pp. 42–4 and 51–70.