The role of the military in education in South Africa
While the question of the class nature of the State, and various aspects of its role has been the subject of intense and vitriolic debate, the area. of the 'repressive state apparatuses' in general and the military and police in particular has been relatively unchartered by Western Marxists. The 'classical' Marxist writers gave the subject its due importance, but more recently it has been virtually ignored. The library shelves are full of works on the military by bourgeois sociologists and political scientists, but generally Marxists have avoided the area, preferring more familiar pastures. South Africa is no exception in this regard. Hundreds of books, articles, papers, and theses have been written from within an historical materialist paradigm, providing a formidable and wide ranging volume of work. But for the most part questions relating to the military and militarisation have been skirted around. With a war raging in Namibia, the S.A.D.F.'s attempts to destabilise the Southern African region, the military dimension of the conflict in South Africa increasing in significance and with the military having assumed a place in many respects as dominant state apparatus, this gap is almost inexplicable. Over the last two years, however, a few articles, papers and dissertations have been written which have begun to redress this balance and have added to the empirical and theoretical understanding of the area. This dissertation deals with the question of the militarisation of education in South Africa.
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