African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
Politics
Home›African Arguments›Politics›Review of Terence Ranger’s ‘Writing revolt’ – By Clayton Peel

Review of Terence Ranger’s ‘Writing revolt’ – By Clayton Peel

By Diana Jeater
September 7, 2013
3321
0

ClaytonPeelAn “˜intrepid’ historian, pragmatist, and African nationalist
Archives from an epoch-making era unburdened in a profoundly personal yet pulsating new book

Prof Terence Ranger’s new book, Writing Revolt, was launched to a packed audience at the Friends Meeting House in Oxford on 6 March. The latest literary offering from the accomplished historian, writer and contemporary political analyst, Writing Revolt has been acclaimed as not just an authoritative insider’s account of the goings-on as the British colony of Southern Rhodesia trundled on from being an imperial outpost, to rebellious minority white rule engaged with a home-grown revolt by African nationalists. The book is also, according to Cambridge Emeritus Professor John Lonsdale, an “enthralling account” where “one can watch Terence Ranger facing the self-imposed tests of moral courage when liberal principles confronted the increasingly bitter uncertainties of nationalist struggle in Rhodesia…”.

The 182-page account begins with Ranger’s middle England background: well-read, but not so much exposed to the Africa that would become a central feature of his academic, political, and social life. Going to Oxford did a great many things – including introducing him to his wife-to-be, Shelagh – but, as Ranger himself admits, “Oxford did nothing to educate me about Africa”. What it did was make Ranger “a rigorous archival historian, which I remained throughout my years in Rhodesia”, he says.

Thanks to that rigour, we have a whole era of southern African history that bears the signature of Prof Ranger and his research. This rigour is apparent in the meticulous detail of his recollections of events included in the latest book, helped by his personal experiences and a well-constructed and preserved archive of his personal and academic writings.

Writing Revolt is a tribute to the years of social consciousness enacted; to the relationships with nationalists and nationalism made and sustained; and to a perceptive mind which has documented and interpreted southern Africa and its politics for generations trapped in their preconceptions. That will be Ranger’s enduring contribution to African History and political consciousness.

A self-described “intrepid” son to parents who were themselves politically and socially conscious, albeit in Britain’s domestic and Second World War contexts, Ranger mixes with people like Guy and Molly Clutton-Brock, Sketchley Samkange, John Reed, Eileen and Michael Haddon, Eleanor Glynn-Jones, and others among the enlightened minority of the white population in the Rhodesias and Nyasaland who saw the futility of the minority rule project.

Ranger chronicles the multi-racial “partnership” experiment at the University in Salisbury; the activism of the multi-racial Christian Action Group and later the Campaign Against the Colour Bar, alongside the re-emergence of the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress; the turmoil of the Central African Emergencies which saw the detention and trials of prominent figures; the formation and banning of the NDP, its replacement by ZAPU, and the later emergence of ZANU; and, not least illustrious, Prof Ranger’s celebrated editorship of the journal, Dissent.

In all these activities, Mrs Shelagh Ranger is depicted as far more than Prof Ranger’s “other half”. She is a co-participant in the Congress meetings, a committed lobbyist against the many extremes of the Rhodesian regime, a valiant channel of compassion to detainees and their families, and the prime target of a nocturnal police raid.

Writing Revolt is framed by the Rangers’ personal circumstances, without detracting from the heroism of the African nationalists themselves. The book was toasted at the Oxford launch by Douglas Johnson and Robin Palmer, with songs from the Bethnal Green Zimbabwe Association choir. The Rangers may have retired to Oxford, where they first met. But the events recorded in this book will forever bind them to Zimbabwe. Some day, that country, in an enlightened era devoid of the present rancour of a nationalist project gone sour, will remember and honour those who fought the settler-colonialist project with a vision that was not blinded by prejudice of any sort. The heroes of Writing Revolt must surely benefit from that acclaim.

* * * *

This review first appeared in the BZS Review, the quarterly publication of the Britain Zimbabwe Society.
Readers may also be interested in the extended interview with Professor Ranger on the History Workshop Journal blog, www.historyworkshop.org.uk/terence-ranger-life-as-historiography/

Clayton Peel, Dept of Communication, Daystar University, Nairobi.

Tagsterence_ranger
Previous Article

Eastern Congo’s recent troubles: who pulls the ...

Next Article

Alcinda Honwana’s ‘Youth and Revolution in Tunisia’ ...

Diana Jeater

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • In Kampala at an e-mobility parade in November 2021. Credit: Tom Courtright.
    SocietyUganda

    Uganda’s boda bodas: loved, hated, maligned, misunderstood

  • Politics

    Bibliography on Social Research on Darfur

  • Politics

    Darfur in 2003: Not Even Save Darfur to Save it?

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • Crisis in Lasanod: Border Disputes, Escalating Insecurity and the Future of Somaliland
  • Oligarchs, Oil and Obi-dients: The battle for the soul of Nigeria
  • Of cobblers, colonialism, and choices
  • Blackness, Pan-African Consciousness and Women’s Political Organising through the Magazine AWA
  • “People want to be rich overnight”: Nigeria logging abounds despite ban

Editor’s Picks

CultureEditor's PicksPoliticsZimbabwe

“Zimdancehall is dead”: Critics say ghetto sound was sold for a song

Zimdancehall was once known for its revolutionary lyrics. Now its singers are hyping up businessmen in songs and performing at Zanu-PF rallies. What started as indistinct chatter of disapproval on ...
  • Africa covid vaccine rollout map

    Covid-19 vaccine rollout in Africa tracker: An interactive map

    By Catherine Kyobutungi
    September 29, 2021
  • South Africa: Meet the queer vloggers taking back the narrative

    By Grant Andrews
    March 4, 2021
  • People gather for an open air film screening in Khartoum, Sudan.

    Charlie Chaplin and the reclaiming of Sudan

    By Samira Sawlani
    November 5, 2019
  • Nollywood has been mediocre for long enough

    By Dika Ofoma
    January 27, 2022

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu