There is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
ACCORDING to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), 200 people died and 20 000 were displaced during the Seven Day War of 25–31 March 1990. They were mainly from Ashdown, Caluza, Mpumuza, Gezubuso, KwaShange and […]
‘BRING back “Gatsha” book, say young Reds’ (The Witness, 4 March 2010). This headline awoke vivid memories from nearly 20 years old; but more importantly it re-opened the censorship debate. The Young Communist League (YCL) was […]
IN a world in which books are under pressure from a multiplicity of electronic media, historical and political biography stands out as a genre holding its own. Recent subjects include Steve Biko and a range of […]
APARTHEID was a crime against humanity and a heresy. And robust opposition was morally justifiable. Any other interpretation of late twentieth-century South African history would be hard to argue and few seem inclined to try. […]
THE cricket boycott is over. A white South African team had a triumphal welcome in India and even managed to win a match. Everyone in India, it seems, loves South African cricketers. Even Mother Theresa was wheeled […]
HIS murderers have long been jailed, but the exact motivation and the broader ramifications, such as the possibility of an inside job, remain elusive. Martin Tembisile Hani (better known as Chris, his younger brother’s name) […]
IN the early 1970s Donald Sutherland and Gene Wilder starred in a film entitled ‘Start the revolution without me’. This sentiment must have entered the local political equation because somewhere along the line we missed […]
IN the apartheid era they were called Communists and told to pack for Moscow. In post-liberation South Africa they are abused as racists. Liberals have never had an easy ride, but adherents of a political […]
THE way in which former supporters of apartheid and the security state have shrugged off the past and adopted a born-again attitude, which appropriates much of the terminology of their democratic opponents, is one of […]
A recent exchange in The Witness raised the role of liberals in the liberation struggle. It has become fashionable to demean their contribution, characterising liberals as guilt-ridden fellow travellers of the apartheid regime. Indeed, a widely held […]