Class of '79: The Story of Three Fellow Students Who Risked Their Lives to Destroy Apartheid - Brossura

Warman, Janice

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1431410861 ISBN 13: 9781431410866

Casa editrice: Jacana Media, 2014

Riassunto

Out of the class of 1979 at Rhodes University one of the quietest girls in the class, Marion Sparg joined the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) Umkhonto we Sizwe, trained in exile in Angola, and was eventually convicted of bombing three police stations. The Cape Times journalist Zubeida Jaffer was imprisoned, poisoned, and tortured for her writing and her union activism, yet chose not to prosecute her torturer. Guy Berger, also a student and later a lecturer at Rhodes University, was arrested and interrogated for possession of banned books. He spent seven months in custody, three of which he spent in solitary confinement. He was ultimately sentenced to four years in prison. For them, it began at the moment that each of them realized that what was happening in South Africa was wrong, and that they simply could not tolerate it. And for all of them, that moment came at Rhodes University. Each of them chose to reject their backgrounds and take the path of resistance, following in the footsteps of the famous few. Among these were the writers Breyten Breytenbach, Nadine Gordimer, Ingrid Jonker, Alan Paton; and the fighters Albie Sachs, Ruth First, Trevor Manuel, and Joe Slovo. This book is for all those who suffered under apartheid, and suffered to end it, and in particular for Marion, Zubeida, and Guy, who have shared their story so generously.

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Informazioni sull'autore

Janice Warman is a journalist and editor whose career spans writing, editing, and broadcasting at a senior level for the BBC, the Daily Mail, the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Observer, and the Spectator. She is author of The World Beneath and coauthor of The Hey Nonny Handbook.

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The Class of '79

The Story of Three Fellow Students Who Risked Their Lives to Destroy Apartheid

By Janice Warman

Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd

Copyright © 2014 Janice Warman
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4314-1086-6

Contents

The Beginning, 
Johannesburg, 
1 Marion Sparg, 
Photographic Insert - I, 
2 Guy Berger, 
Photographic Insert - II, 
3 Zubeida Jaffer, 
Sussex, 
Acknowledgements, 
Endnotes, 

CHAPTER 1

PART ONE

Marion Sparg

Hillbrow, Johannesburg. 7 March 1986. Marion was bent over the bath in her flat, washing clothes, pondering her next move. She had just returned from a trip to the shops. She had been followed; she knew that. Normally – and this was normal in her world – you would be followed for days or weeks, sometimes even months.

So, then, she had time to move. She could disappear back over the border as quickly as she had come: a white girl with a rucksack.

Only this time it would be lighter. Because the limpet mines were gone.

Then it came. A knock; no one had ever knocked at her door before.

She approached cautiously and pulled the blue curtain across its wire rods. A woman stood there. She was nervous; she looked to her side.

Now Marion knew what was coming. She backed slowly away from the door.

Then, as what followed began to happen, seemingly in slow motion, she was back in Maseru with her commander.

I want a gun for this job. I want a gun.

No. I will not give you a gun. If I give you one, you'll use it. And if you use it, you'll end up dead.

I want a gun.

There will be more of them than you. And if you use the gun, they'll kill you. You might kill one of them, but they will kill you. Marion, trust me here. You can't take a gun.

Now there were at least five policemen in the room and she was on the floor. She hadn't opened the door; it was hanging off its hinges. And they were shouting, jostling her, screaming obscenities.

And then she was angry. Not afraid – angry.

'I was furious,' Marion tells me. 'Furious because there was nothing I could do. There were security policemen all over me with two pistols on either side of my head. A dangerous situation. A situation in which it is best to remain calm if you want to come out alive. But I was too angry and so the shouting match continued. And then I remember the lieutenant in charge, who had remained outside, walked in and said, "Stop shouting, everybody!"'

She laughs. 'It was a bit crazy. But that anger was so real and so unexpected. It came from nowhere.

'I had now been handcuffed and seated on the bed. The lieutenant who had come in and calmed the situation down sat down next to me. He gave me some piece of paper where he was described as an officer of the peace.

'I saw these words and lost it again. I screamed at him. I remember this poor guy looking at me like he was thinking, Have I met a lunatic here? And he said, "What has made you so angry?" And I said, "How can you describe yourself as an officer of the peace?"'

It was a situation that Marion would meet again and again: the sheer farcical nature of exchanges with the law. South Africa under apartheid had an Orwellian air. There may not have been a Ministry of Truth, but the 'Ministry of Co-operation and Development' ran the apartheid system, which was itself called 'separate development'. Then there was the 'Ministry of Justice' – applying laws that countered human rights. The 'Immorality Act' that rendered any sex act across the racial divide an imprisoning offenc

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Jacana Media
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1431410861
• ISBN 13: 9781431410866
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 159
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile