You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
None
A revelatory and definitive account of how Nelson Mandela and his peers led South Africa to the brink of revolution against the postwar twentieth century’s most infamously racist regime. Spear: Mandela and the Revolutionaries brings to life the brief revolutionary period in which Nelson Mandela and his comrades fought apartheid not just with words but also with violence. After the 1960 Sharpeville police shootings of civilian protesters, Mandela and his comrades in the mass-resistance order of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Communist Party pioneered the use of force and formed Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), or Spear of the Nation. A civilian-based militia, MK stockpiled weapons and w...
Cape Town is dominated by the colour cleavage which exists between black and white in southern Africa and confines colour groups to separate areas and occupations. Langa is a township on the periphery of the city, very poor by comparison with most of the suburbs, and reserved for occupation by black Africans, most of them Xhosa-speaking. They are not the original occupants of the western Cape, but they have been there in appreciable numbers for a hundred years, mingling with the 'Coloured' people of mixed descent, and working along with them and white South Africans. The Africans come mostly from the eastern part of the Cape Province, where the Portuguese found them in the sixteenth century, and the Coloured people count among their ancestors the aborigines of the Cape, the Khoikhoin people, or so-called Hottentots. The white settlers established themselves in 1652.
The autobiography has as its primary focus political history, in particular the history of the ANC in South Africa and in exile. The author records in a refreshingly straightforward way how he and his peers experienced life in South Africa in the 1950's. His politicization in Cradock through such events as the 1952 Defiance Campaign and later at the University of Fort Hare give the background for his recruitment into the ANC underground. A true non-racialist with a broad view of the world, he reflects a generation of South Africans who were educated in the East European socialist countries. He was widely read and knowledgeable about global affairs; he understood the politics of most African countries and hoped to contribute to the building of a new South Africa.
CD contains the entire text of the five volume set.