Struggles over memory are commonplace in contemporary South Africa. The 1980s are an especially contested part of its past. That decade witnessed a mass resurgence of popular struggles that picked up a thread of civil opposition going back to the 1976 Soweto uprising. From outside South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) stepped up its armed struggle and sanctions campaigns; inside the country the United Democratic […]
The American philosopher Lewis Gordon, in an essay on affirmative action: There are those who praise South Africa for making the transformation to a supposedly post-Apartheid society nonviolently. Without violence? The many blacks (in the Black Consciousness conception) and their supporters who were killed, tortured and imprisoned; the many protesters harmed; the tanks; the guns; […]
Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach (and his band) performing the composition “Freedom Now!” Suite on a German TV channel in 1964. Thirty years later South Africans would all vote together for the first time in democratic elections on April 27-28, 1994. Today, of course, we celebrate the 16th anniversary of those elections. The struggle continues. […]
A busy week on the personal front (more on that another time) so that means a lot of stuff gets the speed blog treatment. * First up, a link to the “Parts of Africa” hip hop mix: Fourteen tracks including music by Abass Abass, Da Brains and Daara J. [Link]
