Remembering the Rebellion

The Zulu or Bhambatha Rebellion took place from February to July 1906. To commemorate the centenary, Jeff Guy wrote and compiled a series of twelve articles. These appeared as newspaper supplements to The Witness (in English) and The Echo, Ilanga and UmAfrika (in isiZulu) and distributed free to schools throughout the KwaZulu-Natal. This successful educational project was the fruit of unique collaboration between Jeff Guy, the newspapers, the Department of Education and the Office of the Premier. It is hoped this fruitful partnership will be renewed in order to produce other series of articles on historical themes. Jeff Guy and artist and archaeologist Justine Wintjes have already begun work on a new theme, 'The Foundations of African Society', examining the question, 'What is African?' and drawing from sources such as history, archaeology, genetics and philosophy, on a scale of millions of years as opposed to hundreds. The educational material, a work-in-progress comprising texts and original illustrations, is currently being developed and used to accompany the History Honours course 'The Foundations of African society' during the 1st semester of 2007 (January-June) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.