Political Activism
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Albert Luthuli: Bound by faith R200.00
Much public historical mythology asserts that Chief Albert Luthuli, former President of the African National Congress (ANC), launched the armed struggle upon his return to South Africa after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. This misinterpretation sparks what is arguably one of the most relevant and controversial historical debates in South Africa. Due to Luthuli’s domestic and international prominence and impeccable moral character, liberation struggle icons, political parties and politicians justify in part their past actions and their contemporary relevance upon a contrived historical memory. Often that memory is not compatible with the archival record. Contrary to a nationalist inspired historical perspective, in this book Scott Couper argues that Luthuli did not support the initiation of violence in December 1961. Luthuli’s ecclesiastical tradition, Congregationalism, embedded within him the primacy of democracy, education, sacrificial service, multiracialism and egalitarianism, propelling him to the heights of political leadership. However, these same seminal emphases rendered Luthuli obsolete as a political leader within an increasingly radicalised, desperate and violent environment. While Christian faith fuelled his political success, it engendered the inertia for his irrelevance following the ANC’s resort to violence. By not supporting the ANC’s armed movement, Luthuli’s political career proved to be `bound by faith’.
Author(s): Scott Couper
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Bantu Holomisa: The Game Changer - An Authorised Biography (Paperback) Original price was: R290.00.R240.00Current price is: R240.00.
Bantu Holomisa is one of South Africa’s most respected and popular political figures. Born in the Transkei in 1955, he attended an elite school for the sons of chiefs and headmen. While other men his age were joining Umkhonto weSizwe, Holomisa enrolled in the Transkeian Defence Force and rose rapidly through the ranks.
As head of the Transkeian Defence Force, Holomisa led successive coups against the homeland regimes and then became the head of its military government. He turned the Transkei into a ‘liberated space’, giving shelter to ANC and PAC activists, and declared his intention of holding a referendum on the reincorporation of the Transkei into South Africa. These actions brought him immense popularity and the military dictator became a liberation hero for many South Africans.When the unbanned ANC held its first election for its national executive in 1994, Holomisa, who had by now joined the party, received the most votes, beating long-time veterans and party stalwarts. He and Mandela developed a close relationship, and Holomisa served in Mandela’s cabinet as deputy minister for environmental affairs and tourism. As this biography reveals, the relationship with both Mandela and the ANC broke down after Holomisa testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, among other issues, that Stella Sigcau and her cabinet colleagues had accepted a bribe from Sol Kerzner.
After being expelled from the ANC, Holomisa formed his own party, the United Democratic Movement, with Roelf Meyer. As leader of the UDM, Holomisa has played a prominent role in building coalitions among opposition parties and in leading important challenges to the dominant party.
This biography, written in collaboration with Holomisa, presents an engaging and revealing account of a man who has made his mark as a game changer in South African politics.
Author: Eric Naki
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Black Man, You Are On Your Own R250.00
Some 40 years ago, in 1968, workers and students in France took to the streets in battles against the conservative Gaullist regime. University students in Britain occupied campuses, calling for greater democracy and student rights. The Prague Spring saw Czechoslovakian patriots take on Soviet tanks in an attempt to overthrow Russian domination. In the United States, mass opposition to the war in Vietnam and the black civil rights and black power movements reached new heights. In South Africa, the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) was launched under the leadership of Bantu Stephen Biko. Black South African students were not just victims of apartheid but were also thinkers, conscious actors and historical agents. In the face of an authoritarian and repressive political order, SASO turned black students into an organised social force, taught them about politics and the role they should play, was a catalyst of collective action notably for the Soweto uprising, and contributed significantly to the erosion of the apartheid social order and to educational and social transformation in South Africa.
Author: Saleem Badat
1 in stock
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The Bus People R220.00
This book is about the lived experiences of the bus commuters. The Bus People are the Black-working class who primarily reside in informal settlements. The book covers the impact of taxi violence on the bus people, the targeting of bus drivers when there are conflicts about public transport routes, the struggles of domestic workers, #FeesMustFall, access to water and dignified sanitation, policing, absent fathers and family planning.
Author(s): Chumile Sali
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Time Is Not The Measure - A Memoir R180.00
Vusi Mavimbela is one of South Africa’s foremost political adventurers and wanderers. A writer of singular verve, humour and descriptive power, his memoir provides penetrating pen portraits of many well-known South African and African political actors, including martyred uMkhonto weSizwe guerilla Solomon Mahlangu, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, Robert Mugabe and a galaxy of senior ANC exiles such as Joe Slovo, Chris Hani, Josiah Jele, Joel Netshitenzhe and Mac Maharaj.
He touches on and illuminates the personalities of many influential men and women in South Africa’s early democratic governments. But the heart of Mavimbela’s narrative lies in his unique experience of working as a top administrator and counsellor in the offices of Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. In the most intimate detail, he describes the emergence and escalation of the conflict between those two flawed principals. He captures the drama of their struggle and its destructive fallout for the new South African state.Mavimbela offers a potent warning: loyalty and long service to a political party is no guarantee of wise and effective leadership.
Author: Vusi Mavimbela
