News & Events

Press cuttings from 1968 about the banning of the miniskirt in Malawi, a proposal for the Republican Constitution of Malawi dated 1965, field notes of conversations with local court chairmen: the Library of the African Studies Centre Leiden is thrilled to have acquired the archives of scholar Franz von Benda-Beckmann, who collected material about legal pluralism in Malawi in the 1960s. His wife, Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, kindly donated 3 small boxes containing interesting material on Nyasaland and Malawi, including old Constitutions, law books, reports from local courts, penal codes and folders.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 2004 decided to document the Southern African liberation struggles and to publish the results in a series of books. In 2015 the 9-volume work appeared, describing the liberation wars in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and the experiences in frontline states Botswana, Tanzania and Zambia and in the ‘extension countries’ Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland. Historical chapters are followed by personal stories of liberation fighters, such as Saara Kuugongelwa, Namibia's current Prime Minister. The books are the subject of our latest Library Highlight.

UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in September 1961 when his plane crashed in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). His period in office was marked by the challenges of the Cold War and the decolonization of Africa, in particular Congo. Initial investigations could not clarify the reasons for the crash. More than 50 years later further evidence emerged. Henning Melber (director emeritus Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala) will discuss Hammarskjöld’s approach to Congo and the efforts to establish the circumstances of the plane crash, during the seminar on 17 March.