Albie Sachs, former judge, freedom fighter, and professor, speaks (and sings!) about his anti-apartheid activism and lifelong commitment to equality and justice. He reflects on the enduring need for “soft vengeance” and draws on his 15-year term on South Africa’s Constitutional Court to emphasize the importance of constitutionalism for democracy. The interview concludes with Sachs’ thoughts on Jacob Zuma’s demise and Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency.
Tag Archives: apartheid
Episode 97: Reproductive Rights in South Africa
Susanne Klausen (History, Carleton U.) on the history and politics of women’s reproductive rights in South Africa. Our discussion of race, nationalism, and women’s sexuality focuses on her new book, Abortion Under Apartheid, the first full-length study of the history of abortion in an African context. The interview concludes with an assessment of the present and future of abortion rights in South Africa and internationally.
Episode 94: The Bomb, a Professor, and Higher Education in South Africa
Professor Renfrew Christie (University of the Western Cape) on South African advances and challenges since 1994; educational transformations at UWC; his role as an anti-apartheid student activist, exposure of South Africa’s nuclear bomb and subsequent imprisonment, and nuclear issues today.
Episode 87: Black Politics in South Africa
Chitja Twala (History, Univ. of Free State) on the history of black politics and the African National Congress in the Free State province; oral history; cultural resistance; the field of History in South Africa; lessons of the Marikana Massacre; and “transformation” in South African higher education.
Episode 82: Denis Goldberg’s Life for Freedom in South Africa
Denis Goldberg reflects on his activism, hardships in prison, and the highs and lows of the antiapartheid movement. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1963 in South Africa’s Rivonia trial with Mandela and other leaders. He served 22 years in an apartheid prison. Goldberg’s autobiography is titled The Mission: A Life for Freedom in South Africa.
Episode 75: Radio and Resistance in South Africa
Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi (U. Witwatersrand/Michigan) on radio, ethnicity and knowledge production in South Africa, both apartheid’s Bantu Radio and the liberation movement’s Radio Freedom, including broadcasts and audiences, idioms, songs and slogans. Also discusses formation of Ndebele ethnicity and role of popular radio in forging a strong ethnic consciousness, and histories of African interpreters and research assistants.
Episode 67: Africanizing History and Society
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Sifiso Ndlovu (CEO, South African Democracy Education Trust) on the Soweto 1976 rising; personal and professional perspectives on challenges and contributions of African historians; writing and editing SADET’s The Road to Democracy in South Africa series; and the importance of orality and African languages in Zulu history and in rewriting South Africa’s past.
Episode 59: Layering Racial Oppression in South Africa
Jacob Dlamini, South African author, journalist, and historian, on his best-selling book Native Nostalgia, a memoir that challenges conventional struggle narratives. He also discusses the social and political history of Kruger National Park and a new research project on collaborators of the apartheid security forces.
Episode 57: African Activists
Eddie Daniels and Christine Root on spending a lifetime working for African liberation; Daniels in South Africa, where he was imprisoned with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island (1964-79), and Root in the U.S. as Associate Director of the Washington Office on Africa in solidarity with such struggles. The African Activist Archive preserves records and memories of ordinary Americans’ support for Africans’ fight against colonialism and apartheid.
