Apartheid's Festival

"Witz's meticulously researched book focuses on the constructions and contests over South Africa's government—sponsored tercentenary festival in 1952 commemorating the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck, the first commander of the Dutch East India Company's revictualizing station at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. The organizing committee for the van Riebeeck festival conceived of the event as a nation—building exercise for South Africa's white population, devoting considerable effort to resolving conflicts over how to depict what was perceived to be Afrikaner and British pasts. Following the logic of the National Party's apartheid program, non—Europeans were incorporated into separate pageants that acknowledged and celebrated white settler history as the vanguard of civilization. Given the festival's unapologetic promotion of white supremacy, blacks largely boycotted the event. In fact, the African National Congress launched its defiance campaign in 1952 on April 6, the anniversary of van Riebeeck's landing. As the van Riebeeck festival illustrates, the production of public pasts is seldom straightforward, as it is always limited by previous historical depictions and the ever—present conflicts that accompany any form of commemorative activity. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper—division undergraduates and above."

~J. O. Gump, University of San Diego , 2004may CHOICE