Collaboration vs Complicity in Apartheid South Africa Anonymous College

“Askari” is a word with Arabic origins meaning “soldier”. In South Africa, the word was used to identify those formerly of the ANC who “turned” and were converted into counterinsurgents and informants for the apartheid regime. Askaris are often viewed uniformly as traitors, but their motives for switching sides are scarcely deeply explored. However, in Jacob Dlamini’s book, Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle, Dlamini aims to challenge the automatic association between askaris and traitors by including facts about Glory Sedibe’s life that could have complicated his decision to switch sides. Consequently, he asserts that switching sides is a gray area, rather than a black or white decision.

As a member of the ANC, Glory Sedibe was respected and hailed as one of the organizations future leaders. By providing this background, Dlamini demonstrates how complicated the act of betrayal truly is. Dlamini describes the ANC’s anti-apartheid struggle as Sedibe’s “first defining cause”. In his 9 years of involvement with the ANC and the MK (the militant branch of the ANC), his close friends described him as nothing short of a “trusted military genius”. Even his then-enemy Eugene De Kock stated,

“MK...