Tag: apartheid

Lidia Rauch was born at the crossroads of South Africa’s past and present. She is the granddaughter of one of apartheid’s longest-serving ministers, Fanie Botha. She grew up in a world built for her comfort, yet she chose to reckon with its cost. Her story moves between privilege and pain, from a childhood marked by fracture to a career inside the machinery of government.

The 1976 Soweto Uprising represents a decisive turning point in South Africa’s history. Even contemporaries viewed it as the beginning of the end of apartheid. This compelling book examines both the underlying causes and the immediate factors that led to this watershed event. It explores the crucial role of Black Consciousness ideology. It also examines emerging school-based organisations that shaped the character and form of the revolt.

On 16 June 1976, thousands of Black South African school children took to the streets of Soweto. They protested the introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction under apartheid education. Police met the protests with brutal force. Many children never returned home. This day is now remembered as the start of the Soweto Uprising. It also echoed through 6001, the Orlando East home of Lebo Diseko’s family.

South Africa’s 257 municipalities, the bedrock of local governance, are currently grappling with a severe trifecta of challenges. These challenges include worsening financial mismanagement, decaying infrastructure and rapidly eroding citizen trust. Restoring trust and performance has become a national priority.

Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda was first published in London in 1988. However, it was made unavailable in South Africa due to litigation threats by Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Gatsha Buthelezi operated from within the apartheid system of the South African government.

Mac Maharaj played a pivotal role in the liberation movement for nearly four decades. He endured brutal torture and spent twelve years imprisoned on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela. Maharaj smuggled out the manuscript of Mandela’s autobiography. He later returned to South Africa to build a political and military underground.

Between 1960 and 1989 in South Africa, more than 130 people were executed for crimes that had a political motive. Who were they? What did they do, and why did they do it? While many people have heard of Solomon Mahlangu, John Harris, or even Vuyisile Mini, the vast majority of executed activists remain unknown. This is despite the fact that they paid the ultimate price for their actions.

Reflections on race, language, colonial, postcolonial and decolonial knowledge projects that explore the pitfalls and possibilities that face South African universities and a post-apartheid generation inventing the future of knowledge.

The Bam family hailed from Goqwana, near Tsolo, in the Transkei region of South Africa's Eastern Cape. This book focuses on six siblings, their ancestors and particularly Fikile and Brigalia Bam. Notably, Fikile and Brigalia emerged as prominent public figures in their respective spheres.

South Africa has produced two globally recognised leaders from different eras: Jan Christiaan Smuts and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Smuts served as Prime Minister from 1919 to 1924 and again from 1939 to 1948. Mandela served as President from 1994 to 1999.