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On 6 September 1966, inside the House of Assembly in Cape Town, Dimitri Tsafendas fatally stabbed Hendrik Verwoerd, South Africa’s Prime Minister and so-called “architect of apartheid.” Tsafendas was immediately arrested, and before the authorities had even questioned him, they declared him a madman without any political motive for the killing. In the Cape Supreme Court, Tsafendas was found unfit to stand trial on the grounds that he suffered from schizophrenia and that he had no political motive for killing Verwoerd. Tsafendas spent the next 28 years in prison, making him the longest-serving prisoner in South African history. For most of his incarceration, he was subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment by the prison authorities. This new updated edition contains all the developments regarding the Tsafendas case after the publication of the book's first edition.
In the South African House of Assembly, on 6 September 1966, Dimitri Tsafendas stabbed to death Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd. Afterwards, Tsafendas was declared to be a schizophrenic who believed a tapeworm lived inside him which controlled his actions, and that he had no political motive for assassinating Verwoerd. Pronounced unfit to stand trial, Tsafendas went down in history as a deranged parliamentary messenger. For fifty years, this story prevailed. However, this book now reveals the truth about Tsafendas; that he was deeply political from an early age. He was arrested numerous times, starting in Mozambique, the country of his birth. In Portugal, the security police opened a file on...
On 6 September 1966, inside the House of Assembly in Cape Town, Dimitri Tsafendas stabbed to death Hendrik Verwoerd, South Africa’s Prime Minister and so-called “architect of apartheid”. Tsafendas was immediately arrested and before he had even been questioned by the authorities, they declared him a madman without any political motive for the killing. In the Cape Supreme Court, Tsafendas was found unfit to stand trial on the grounds that he suffered from schizophrenia and that he had no political motive for killing Verwoerd. Tsafendas spent the next 28 years in custody, making him the longest-serving detainee in South African history. For most of his incarnation he was subjected to cru...
Examining a significant and largely unexplored aspect of Jimmy Carter's presidency (1977-1981), Harris Dousemetzis radically revises the current understanding of this critical period in American political history. By using a wealth of previously unpublished archival material, along with personal interviews with 43 prominent gay rights activists of the time and 12 senior Carter White House aides, this book documents what actually happened during Carter's presidency regarding the development and recognition of gay rights and the efforts of the evangelical right to prevent social reform. Investigating the full range of government actions taken and policies implemented, Carter's personal commitment and support for the movement, as well as the role of activists in bringing about change, this is a significant and original contribution to knowledge about Carter's presidency, the gay rights movement, and American political development. Dousemetzis situates Carter's presidency in its rightful place, as a crucial stage in one of the most dynamic areas of change in recent American politics and political culture. Features a Foreword by Stuart Eizenstat and an Afterword by Lilian Faderman.
Unusable pasts; scandalous lives; political betrayal, confession and collaboration: reading narrative non-fiction across South Africa's unfinished transition.
Penny Siopis is internationally acclaimed for her pathbreaking paintings and installations. Your History with Me is a comprehensive study of her short films, which have put her at the front ranks of contemporary artist-filmmakers. Siopis uses found footage to create short video essays that function as densely encrypted accounts of historical time and memory that touch on the cryptic and visceral elements of gender and power. The critics, scholars, curators, artists, and filmmakers in this volume examine her films in relation to subjects ranging from the history of Greeks in South Africa, trauma and cultural memory, and her relationship with the French New Wave to her feminist-inflected artic...
Many of their fears were, in effect, to be recognised by the Constitution, which embedded individual rights, including those to property and private schooling, alongside the important principle of proportionality of political representation. While a small minority of whites chose to emigrate, the large majority had little choice but to adjust to the democratic settlement which, on the whole, they have done - and in different ways. It was only a small right wing which sought to actively resist; others have sought to withdraw from democracy into social enclaves; but others have embraced democracy actively, either enthusiastically welcoming its freedoms or engaging with its realities in defence of 'minority rights'. .
South Africa was born in war, has been cursed by crises and ruptures, and today stands on a precipice once again. This book explores the country’s tumultuous journey from the Second Anglo-Boer War to 2021. Drawing on diaries, letters, oral testimony and diplomatic reports, Thula Simpson follows the South African people through the battles, elections, repression, resistance, strikes, insurrections, massacres, crashes and epidemics that have shaped the nation. Tracking South Africa’s path from colony to Union and from apartheid to democracy, Simpson documents the influence of key figures including Jan Smuts, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, P.W. Botha, Thabo Mbeki and Cyril Ramaphosa. He offers...
Examining a significant and largely unexplored aspect of Jimmy Carter's presidency (1977-1981), Harris Dousemetzis radically revises the current understanding of this critical period in American political history. By using a wealth of previously unpublished archival material, along with personal interviews with 43 prominent gay rights activists of the time and 12 senior Carter White House aides, this book documents what actually happened during Carter's presidency regarding the development and recognition of gay rights and the efforts of the evangelical right to prevent social reform. Investigating the full range of government actions taken and policies implemented, Carter's personal commitment and support for the movement, as well as the role of activists in bringing about change, this is a significant and original contribution to knowledge about Carter's presidency, the gay rights movement, and American political development. Dousemetzis situates Carter's presidency in its rightful place, as a crucial stage in one of the most dynamic areas of change in recent American politics and political culture. Features a Foreword by Stuart Eizenstat and an Afterword by Lilian Faderman.
This book offers a collection of South African university students’ written responses to the Commedia and scholars’ commentary on them. The students’ collection includes writings of all genres and subjects: prose, poetry, personal reflection, dialogue, non-fiction based on the first two cantiche of the Commedia. Some are autobiographical and others are fictional stories, but they all have in common a very personal (and South African) approach to Dante’s text. The scholarly essays of the second part are concerned with the unusual way in which Dante is appreciated by our youth: not as a remote figure only encountered in the hallways of the literature department, but as an intimate presence, a guide, a friend whose language is familiar and invites a response.