<plimb@library.uwa.edu.au>

It is true, as Brian Hosmer notes, that both the crisis
confronting History Departments and the "Heritage & History"
issue are not confined to South Africa. Yet each crisis is
played out on a national stage and thus warrants our separate
attention.

Regarding actions to be taken, the South African Historical
Society [SAHS], like the American Historical Association, has
been grappling with ways of tackling the crisis. The
Presidential address to the 1997 biennial conference of the SAHS
discussed this matter [reproduced in a recent issue of the
_South African Historical Journal_]. One aspect raised in the
addresss is that of the need for better collaboration with
'amateur' historians. Charles van Onselen also wrote on this in
a newspaper article at the time.

The recent H-Africa discussion about media representations of
Africa [by Kaplan etc.] suggests that there has never been a
more pressing time for historians to air their views in public.
If we look at the Internet, then the situation is analagous to
the mass media: thousands of burgeoning sites purporting to
reveal the 'mysteries' of African history; but relatively few
home pages or electronic journals addresssing African history in
depth or interactively. Better use of the Net in this regard may
not only spread the ideas of historians of Africa much wider,
but also gain us new friends and allies in future battles over
funding or vis a vis the "Heritage vs. History" issue.

I am not sure if Kaplan qualifies as an 'amateur' historian, but
a lesson here is surely that closer collaboration between
practitioners may facilitate a more robust History in the 21st
century. One only has to remember the contributions of people
like Basil Davidson to African history in the 1960s to imagine
how other 'amateurs' could profitably be employed in the future.

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