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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 31

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

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...

www.thelancet.com

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 23

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

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 21

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.

Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 21

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

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 21

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’.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 21

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

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 21

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.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 21

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.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 21

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.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 21

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.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 21

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....

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...

www.tandfonline.com

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 17

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

Operation Dudula blocks babies from getting vaccines

Vigilante group is controlling clinic queues in Johannesburg

groundup.org.za

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 15

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

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

www.nytimes.com

Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 7

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

'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

Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 5

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

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...

www.lrb.co.uk

Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jul 5

An Efficient Man 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...

www.lrb.co.uk

Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jun 27

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.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jun 27

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

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jun 27

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.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jun 27

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.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jun 27

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.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jun 27

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.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jun 27

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.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jun 27

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

Below is the abstract.

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Richard L Raber @richardraber.bsky.social · Jun 27

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/...

www.mdpi.com

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