PUBLICATION OF MICHAEL DINGAKE’S MEMOIRS ‘BETTER TO DIE ON ONE’S FEET’
Michael Dingake’s book “Better to die on one’s feet” will be published Continue reading
Category Archives: Underground struggle
Raymond Suttner audio interview with Gareth Cliff 12 March 2015
Recovering democracy in SA to appear February
My book: Recovering democracy in South Africa will be published by Jacana Media in February. Continue reading
Raymond Suttner: ANC in decline as it celebrates its 103rd year of existence
Ericka Huggins (former Black Panther Party) in conversation with Nomboniso Gasa (BBC)
Raymond Suttner: Yes there were real martyrs. Remembering Anton Fransch
Yes, there were real martyrs. It is not simply a grand narrative where heroic mythologies have been invented!
Reading the report that I posted on the death of 20 year old Anton Fransch,which I post again at the end of this, three things stuck in my mind:
1. Before Fransch faced battle with the apartheid forces, according to Mohamed ‘Gori’ November, his MK comrade, he ‘allowed the police to first take the family to safety, who lived in the house where he rented.’
In other words, for Anton Fransch all lives were precious and there was no such thing as people to be ‘caught in the crossfire’. Everyone mattered. Even though he must have known he would die, he ensured that there would be no unnecessary additional sacrifices.
2. Then it is said ‘He was 20 years old but he had to take on the responsibility of a man at a very young age. He became a man long before he completed being a boy.’
Chris Hani also used to say: ‘I never had a youth’.
3. In these shameful and shameless times we need to remember that people did sacrifice. In these times when many scholars write cynically of the struggle, we need to remind them that there were those who paid with their lives to ensure that there would be the possibility of democracy.
Some of those who were involved in significant ways are amongst the ANC and allied leadership and hold office but they too did brave things at various times. How they link what they are doing now and what they did then is of course puzzling.
Some who are in leadership now, in fact some with the loudest voices and constantly talking of counter-revolution, were not around or avoided being around when the time was hard and they could have been part of that struggle.
The police were clear what would happen, saying: Kom uit jou vark, vandag gaan jy vrek. Come out you pig today you will die. And Basil Snayer reports how he died through a hand grenade:
“It was a most heroic and brave fight. From quarter to one to quarter to eight… In the end his flesh was stuck to the walls.”
Raymond Suttner, Nelson Mandela’s masculinities (PDF file), Wiser seminar
Raymond Suttner, Invoking Nelson Mandela’s legacies as we celebrate democracy
Raymond Suttner, video interview on lessons from Chris Hani’s life (Polity)
Chris Hani (Afravision film)
Raymond Suttner interview with Polity on loss of trust and legitimacy and ways of remedying and recovering our
Nomboniso Gasa profile interview on PowerFM with Azania Mosaka
Raymond Suttner, On Mandela’s models of masculinity
Raymond Suttner, Mandela puts apartheid on trial, 1962 and Rivonia trials
When Mandela was captured in 1962 the police did not know that he had been overseas for military training and that he was Commander in Chief of the recently formed Umkhonto we Sizwe, Spear of the nation, (MK).
http://www.polity.org.za/article/mandela-on-trial-its-meaning-for-us-today-2013-12-09
Professsor Philip Bonner reflects on Mandela’s life in video
Palesa Morudu, Remember the past and question the present
Palesa Morudu on the symbolic reburial of her brother, Moss Morudu, whose whereabouts and details of whose death have only become known to the family in recent times.
http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2013/10/29/remember-the-past-and-question-the-present
Podcast of PowerFM radio interview with Raymond Suttner, Kay Sexwale and host Chris Vick, on disagreement with current leadership directions of the ANC
Nomboniso Gasa on patriarchy in history and SA today
Raymond Suttner, Nelson Mandela as a model of manhood
Whereas earlier studies of gender concentrated on women, recent decades have seen a flourishing of literature on masculinities, Continue reading
Nelson Mandela, first TV interview, 1961
The interview was conducted while Mandela was underground and being hunted by the police. It is noteworthy for various reasons. In referring to the franchise, the interviewer refers to formal education as a requirement for political activity and Mandela makes it very clear that black people in South Africa understood their political aspirations, whether or not they had access to formal education, then generally denied under apartheid. The interview may also be the first time that Mandela indicates that the response of the apartheid regime was compelling the liberation movement to reconsider its previous commitment to purely non-violent forms of resistance.
Around this time, not having any idea who Mandela was, I used to catch the bus at the Cape Town parade to go to my school, which was in Newlands. There used to be notices at the bus stop referring to ‘any meeting in regard to Nelson Mandela.’ I did not know what that was about although I was fairly politically conscious. But I like many other whites was then cut off from what the ANC had to say
Raymond Suttner 