Sign up

Login to BooksLIVE

Forgotten password?

Forgotten your password?

Enter your username or email address and we'll send you reset instructions

Books LIVE

Jennifer de Klerk Reviews The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

Literary Lunch: Michiel Heyns to Discuss Invisible Furies at The Food Barn

BooksLIVESA

@flavorpill unveils list of 10 YA books that "scarred us for life": http://t.co/tclZVKlQ

Little White Bakkie - eBooks from Africa!

Little White Bakkie - eBooks from Africa!

Gazing at the Janus-faced ANC through the Eyes of Ronnie Kasrils, Fiona Forde and Andrew Feinstein

by Chiara on Jan 10th, 2012

ANC

As the ANC celebrates its centenary, Alex Russel examines two different sides of “Africa’s most illustrious liberation movement”, with reference to Fiona Forde’s An Inconvenient Youth: Julius Malema and the ‘New’ ANC and Ronnie Kasrils’ The Unlikely Secret Agent (winner of the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award).

The Unlikely Secret AgentAn Inconvenient YouthThe Unlikely Secret Agent is a moving tribute to Kasrils’ late wife and showcases that part of the ANC’s history which encompasses, as Russell calls is, “the heroic vision of the Mandela generation”.

Noting how liberation movements rarely age well, Russell points to Fiona Forde’s biography of the ANC’s “anti-hero”, Julius Malema. Russell says that the flashy figure of Malema as described in Forde’s book serves as an embodiment of “whites’ (and indeed western investors’) worst fears for the future”. This contrasts with the whiff of nostalgia he detects in Kasrils’ biography, where he senses the longing for an era in which it was “easier to distinguish between right and wrong”.

In his article, Russell concludes that for the ANC to achieve its dream of 1912, the party may need to lose an election:

One hundred years ago this Sunday, the burghers of the South African town of Bloemfontein had an unaccustomed and presumably distinctly disconcerting experience. Deep in the heart of the veld, the high plateau that dominates the South African interior, theirs was a traditional Afrikaner community. Little more than a decade earlier, it had been capital of one of the short-lived Boer republics as Afrikaners fought a courageous but doomed battle against British domination.
Yet it was here on January 8 1912 that hundreds of the country’s nascent black middle class met in formal dress, singing the haunting hymn “Nkosi Sikelel’ i-Afrika” (God Bless Africa). Their mere presence would have been shocking enough to the whites. Yet their mission to unite in opposition to blacks’ secondary status in the then newly formed Union of South Africa was truly revolutionary.

Also looking back on 100 years of ANC leadership was M-Net’s Carte Blanche, which interviewed political commentators and activists Xolela Mangcu (author of Becoming Worthy Ancestors), Ahmed Kathrada (Letters from Robben Island), Heidi Holland (100 Years of Struggle), Ronnie Kasrils, Mark Gevisser (Thabo Mbeki: A Dream Deferred), Andrew Feinstein (The Shadow World) and Pallo Jordan (Oliver Thambo Remembered).

Watch the video, “100 Years of the ANC” (in three parts) or read the transcript:

Bongani Bingwa (Carte Blanche presenter): “‘Chiefs of Royal Blood and Gentleman of our race… we have discovered that in the land of their birth, Africans are treated as hewers of wood and drawers of water.’ With echoes of the Bible, so Pixley Ka Seme opened the South African Native National Congress one hundred years ago today. He and the 60 delegates that gathered in Bloemfontein that day could never have imagined the powerhouse the African National Congress would become.”

The idea was this new organisation would defend their diminishing rights without offending the Colonists or even the crown….

Becoming Worthy AncestorsThe Democratic MomentA Free MindNo Bread of Mandela100 Years of StruggleFrom Joburg to JoziDinner with MugabeThe Shadow WorldThabo Mbeki

Book details

  • Oliver Tambo Remembered: A Collection of Contributions from Around the World Celebrating the Life of OR Tambo edited by Zweledinga Pallo Jordan
    EAN: 9781770102361
    Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Cats: Biography, News, Non-fiction, Politics, South Africa
Tags: 100 Years of Struggle, A Collection of Contributions from Around the World Celebrating the Life of OR Tambo, A dream deferred, A Free Mind, Academic, Adam Roberts, Ahmed Kathrada, Ahmed Kathrada's Notebook from Robben Island, Alec Russell, An Inconvenient Youth, ANC, ANC Centenary, Andrew Feinstein, Apartheid, Archive, Archive Public Deliberation and Identity in South Africa, Arms Deal, Aubrey Matshiqi, Becoming Worthy Ancestors, Benedict Anderson, Biography, Books LIVE, Carolyn Hamilton, Carte Blanche, Christopher Hope, Corruption, Crime, Dinner with Mugabe, English, Financial Times, Fiona Forde, Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, From Joburg to Jozi, Gcina Mhlope, Heidi Holland, Inside the Global Arms Trade, Ivan Vladislavic, Jacana, Jacob Zuma, Jonathan Ball, Julius Malema and the 'New' ANC, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Letters from Robben Island, Mandela's ANC, Mark Gevisser, Martin Bernal, Max du Preez, Memoirs of Ahmed Kathrada, Nelson Mandela, News, No Bread of Mandela, Non-fiction, Ntongela Masilela, Oliver Tambo, Oliver Tambo Remembered, Pallo Jordan, Pan Macmillan, Penguin, Picador Africa, Politics, Polokwane, Prisoner No. 468/64, Public Deliberation and Identity in South Africa, Pumla Dineo Gqola, Rian Malan, Robben Island, Robert Mugabe, Ronnie Kasrils, Saki Macozoma, South Africa, South Africas Prospects under Jacob Zuma, Stories About Africa's Infamous City, Thabo Mbeki, The Democratic Moment, The Shadow World, The Unlikely Secret Agent, The Untold Story of a Freedom Fighter Who Became a Tyrant, university Press of Kentucky, Wally Serote, Weapons, Wits University Press, Xolela Mangcu, Zakes Mda, Zebra, Zebra Press, Zimbabwe, Zweledinga Pallo Jordan, Zwelinzima Vavi
Quick URL
 
 

Please register or log in to comment

© Avusa Media. All book excerpts remain copyright their authors. All subdomain blog posts remain copyright their authors.