University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Cover stories & undercover stories apartheid South Africa 1969-1984

Keniston, Billy

Content Files
KENISTON-DISSERTATION-2021.pdf

KENISTON-DISSERTATION-2021.pdf

Download File Copy Link To File
Format
Portable Document Format
Media Type
application/pdf
Size
2.83 MB
API Resource
/items/121254/bitstreams/397501
Bundle
Content
Primary
YES
Downloads
34

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/113325

Description

Title
Cover stories & undercover stories apartheid South Africa 1969-1984
Author(s)
Keniston, Billy
Issue Date
2021-07-16
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Cha-Jua, Sundiata
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Brennan, James
Committee Member(s)
  • Nobili, Mauro
  • Roos, Neil
Department of Study
History
Discipline
History
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2022-01-12T22:56:10Z
Keyword(s)
  • Apartheid
  • South Africa
  • Whiteness
  • Communism
  • Anti-Communism
  • Repression
  • White Supremacy
  • Black Consciousness
  • Armed Struggle
  • Nonviolent Resistance
  • Security Police
  • Counter-insurgency
  • Africa
Abstract
At its narrowest, this dissertation centers around one question: how did the apartheid state’s security forces decide to send the bomb that killed Jeanette and Katryn Schoon on the 28th of June 1984? This dissertation argues that the targeting of Jeanette Schoon was neither random nor thoughtless, but rather was the result of years of intelligence work. Therefore, this dissertation traces a trajectory from the first moment that Jeanette Schoon (née Curtis) became an object of state scrutiny, through an escalating thicket of entanglements, leading up to the assassination. The dissertation is titled “Cover Stories & Undercover Stories” because it addresses the complex interplay between the apartheid state’s security services and its radical opponents. In narrating this dual story of dueling undercover realities, the structure of this dissertation encourages readers to hold onto the perspective of the apartheid state and their radical opponents – at once and in parallel. Jeanette Schoon’s life – and death – was irreparably woven together with a security police officer named Craig Williamson, who infiltrated the white left in 1972 and was one of the key men responsible for killing the Schoons. This dissertation interrogates the extended campaign of infiltration, surveillance and sabotage carried out by Williamson’s unit of the security police, targeting the Schoons and their comrades. This dissertation offers the most in-depth scholarly account of Williamson’s inglorious career to date. Most importantly, this dissertation analyzes the ideological role that Williamson played in defense of the apartheid project. Williamson was a virulent anti-communist and believed that the South African government could never win against a broad-based revolutionary insurrection. Therefore, Williamson sought to obliterate the distinction between political and military opposition, to force the anti-apartheid struggle into an all-out war, fought along Cold War lines. A key contribution of this dissertation is that it insists on narrating the histories of what is known in South Africa as the “aboveground” opposition – legal, nonviolent political organizing –alongside the histories of exile and armed struggle. Narratives of the anti-apartheid struggle that stress the importance of the armed struggle tend to negate or obscure nonviolent forms of resistance. Contrary to Williamson’s attempts to declare everyone who supported the ANC as “violent,” it is critical to acknowledge the subtle, creative and explicitly non-violent aspects of the radical politics that the Schoons and their comrades engaged in. In sum, this dissertation provides a nuanced portrait of one small slice of the struggle against apartheid.
Graduation Semester
2021-08
Type of Resource
Thesis
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113325
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2021 Billy Keniston

Owning Collections

Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois
Dissertations and Theses - History
Graduate theses and dissertations in the Department of History