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Long before I was detained, I knew there was a code of conduct for freedom fighters in detention, in court and as sentenced prisoners. One does not beg for mercy. One does not give away one’s comrades. And if one is forced under extreme duress to say certain things, one tries to limit the damag...
As indicated in the first part of this series, the content of the notions revolutionary consciousness and activity are not static (https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-05-24-the-meaning-of-revolutionary-or-emancipatory-consciousness-and-action-before-and-after-1990-94/). Their meanings may change over time. To have a revolutionary or emancipatory consciousness and what constitute revolutionary or emancipatory activity do not mean the same thing, as conditions that prevail in South Africa (or anywhere else) change. This ought to be obvious, but much discourse is ahistorical and intended...
From 1969/70 until 2006 I had been a fairly orthodox member of the South African Communist Party, and I broke ranks over the party’s conduct during the Jacob Zuma rape trial and its collusion in the corruption of the years of his state presidency, dramatically illustrated in the diversion of funds intended for poverty relief towards refurbishing Zuma’s Nkandla home into a luxurious mansion. I have had no official contact since then and very little interaction with individuals who remain ...
Where a Communist Party no longer adheres to the ethics of communism, it is important to find a way of realising those ethics, of helping others who experience pain and oppression, from outside the party. This is the case in South Africa because the SACP has betrayed its own constituency.
. Some of those who have read my work may be weary of the continual return to Chief Albert Luthuli. I do so because his life has a bearing on some of the most important issues of our time, questions that continue to bedevil our relationships with one another and the qualities of leadership that we seek. Luthuli’s life has relevance to the scourge of violence and the status of nonviolence, and the value placed on peace in our lives, the relevance of religious beliefs in a secular society, questions of masculinity and gender equality, ethical leadership and the question of service, and th...