Richard L Raber

Break the selective silence on the genocide in Gaza Substantial and well-documented evidence indicates a catastrophic public health emergency in Gaza (appendix pp 1–5), marked by severe food insecurity and alarming levels of malnutrition-related deaths...

Break the selective silence on the genocide in Gaza - The Lancet www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Thanks! Glad you’ve found value in the work.

This work would not have been possible without the support of many people. Thank you to @justinpearce.bsky.social for stewarding and helping me refine this article to publication as well as to @msimang.bsky.social for his support and feedback.

Their collective memories and identities bear the imprint of their foundational histories of war, dislocation and disbandment.

Both group identities remain tethered to militarisation: while one directly claims martial heroism and post-war neglect, the other is ostensibly distanced from the military but connected to an image and identity, underpinning their militarisation, as ‘Bushmen’.

This identity has been reinforced by participation in the post-Cold War human and indigenous rights framework.

Conversely, the 31 Battalion community has embraced an indigenous, San identity. They have grafted the racist ‘empty land’ myth onto their modern experiences of displacement and contemporary feelings of minoritisation.

To understand and frame themselves historically, 32 Battalion veterans turned to the central institution in their lives: the military. Viewing military service as epitomising national contribution, they identify as fallen heroes who ‘secured’ South Africa’s democratic transition.

Drawing on oral history interviews, I examine key historical narratives within each group to understand how their memory compositions reflect their identities and social positioning in post-apartheid society.

The apartheid-era South African Defence Force’s most notorious units, 31 Battalion and 32 Battalion, were composed of African troops. With the onset of Namibia’s 1990 independence, these soldiers and their families relocated to South Africa and adapted to a rapidly changing political landscape.

Fallen Heroes and First Peoples: Memory Composition Among Two Ex-Military Communities in South Africa The apartheid-era South African Defence Force’s most notorious units, 31 Battalion and 32 Battalion, were composed of African troops. With the onset of Namibia’s 1990 independence, these soldiers a...

Delighted to share the publication of my article "Fallen Heroes and First Peoples: Memory Composition Among Two Ex-Military Communities in South Africa" in @jsas-journal.bsky.social

It is open access and freely available at the link below.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Operation Dudula blocks babies from getting vaccines Vigilante group is controlling clinic queues in Johannesburg

groundup.org.za/article/oper...

Opinion | I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.

I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/o...

'It comes with the territory': How Israel's archaeologists legitimize annexation Weaponizing antiquities is part of Israel's colonial legacy, says Rafi Greenberg, whose colleagues have largely remained silent about Gaza's destruction.

www.972mag.com/israel-archa...

Tareq Baconi · Short Cuts: Gaza under Siege Humanitarian aid has long served as cover for Israeli crimes. Under the Geneva Conventions, an occupying force is...

Short Cuts www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Andy Beckett · An Efficient Man: A Nazi in Chile Now that the war is so long ago, the subject of Nazi exiles in South America can seem a stale, even dubious...

An Efficient Man www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Thanks for friends and colleagues who provided thoughtful, generative feedback on earlier drafts of this work: @msimang.bsky.social Chichi Ayalogu, Francesco Fanti Rovetta, Rob Gordon, Brian Quinn, Travis Wright, Linda Waldman, Bernard C Moore, & Alan G Morris.

Marshalled towards different political projects, for all these actors, the bones nonetheless serve as a resource and link to a 19th century frontier past.

These motivations range from scientistic confirmation of genealogy and identity under apartheid rule, to post-apartheid calls for repatriation anchored to a global indigenous rights framework, to factional contestations over ownership.

By tracing the life history of Kok II’s remains, well past his natural life, we demonstrate how they serve as a flashpoint mobilized by actors with different aims and objectives at different moments.

The 2007 reinterment again courted controversy and protest, while the contemporary neglect of the new gravesite symbolizes feelings of exclusion and marginalization among some Campbell Griqua today.

The bones again took centre stage with the collapse of apartheid when different groups called for their return and reburial, with an assertion, variously, of ascendant Griqua, indigenous, Khoisan, and Khoikhoi identities.

Buried in 1858, Cornelis Kok II’s grave lay undisturbed in Campbell, Northern Cape, until 1961 when a multiracial coalition, driven by their own sets of interests, unearthed the Griqua leader’s remains.

This work sits at the nexus of memory studies, material culture, and science and technology studies.

Below is the abstract.

Thrilled to share the open access publication of my newest article, "A Biography of Bones: Tracing the Shifting Meanings of Griqua Remains from Their 1961 Exhumation to the Present" coauthored with David Morris in Genealogy.

www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/9/...

Opinion | The Attacks on Zohran Mamdani Show That We Need a New Understanding of Antisemitism

The Attacks on Zohran Mamdani Show That We Need a New Understanding of Antisemitism www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/o...

Most of all, thank you to all the interviewees, archivists, and research participants who enabled me to pursue this dissertation project.

Onwards!

Moreover, I am grateful for the scholarly training I received at IU's History Department as well as funding from @ssrc.org and the Fulbright program as well as multiple Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships.

This recognition is a testament to the continued support and encouragement I have received from my mentors and dissertation committee, scholarly collaborators supportive peers, and wider research community.

I am delighted to share that my PhD dissertation has been selected as the winner of the 2025 Indiana University Graduate School Distinguished Ph.D. Dissertation Award in the Humanities and Fine Arts category.