ABSTRACT
The analysis of the historical factors and processes leading to national independence constitutes a necessary precondition for understanding the present and future developments of any post-colonial society. In the Southern African situation, however, even this task is often clouded and obstructed by the mythology that has developed around the issue of the armed struggle.…The danger arises … when this mythology is in tum imbibed by the analyst, academically refined, and then reimposed onto the characterization of social and political processes. … The difficulty arises in the post-independence situation, particularly in the attempt to explain why things are what they are. The analyst has … to dispel the mythology as a precondition for real analysts.
