Cover stories & undercover stories apartheid South Africa 1969-1984

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.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Keniston, Billy

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cha-Jua, Sundiata
• Brennan, James
• Nobili, Mauro
• Roos, Neil

• Apartheid
• South Africa
• Whiteness
• Communism
• Anti-Communism
• Repression
• White Supremacy
• Black Consciousness
• Armed Struggle
• Nonviolent Resistance
• Security Police
• Counter-insurgency
• Africa

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2021 Billy Keniston

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

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

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113325