Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Z Magazine Review
Book
Review
Review
Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War
against Apartheid
By Alan Wieder
Monthly Review Press, August 2013
Monthly Review Press, August 2013
Review by Seth
Sandronsky
Ruth and Joe, white
secular Jews in apartheid South Africa, did not have to fight against that
society of skin-color privilege. Yet they did because that social system doomed
scores of people to lives of misery and poverty.
We discover the complexities of place, space,
and time in Ruth and Joe’s lives among those with and without name recognition
to overthrow white-minority rule in South Africa. Sadly, Ruth and Joe did not
survive to see their long-distance fight bear fruit. The survivor’s role in
political negotiations away from apartheid rule sparkles, with in-depth
accounts from varied viewpoints of the arduous process. One gets a sense of an
immovable object meeting an irresistible force. Against that backdrop, Wieder’s
narrative is rich in context and details of Ruth and Joe’s activism as
interviews with family members and friends highlight the duo’s union,
“partnered and separated.”
Wieder’s work situates
Ruth and Joe’s decades of anti-apartheid work amid the Cold War—Joe travels to
and from the former Soviet Union and works closely with a colleague there. A
parallel structure in the book evolves between the Cold War and Ruth and Joe’s
lives. Their revolutionary actions evolve on the stage of what world system
theorist Immanuel Wallerstein argues is a system of core, semi-peripheral, and
peripheral nations locked in competitive conflict imbued with class struggle.
Ruth and Joe clash, as
do their comrades, over what did (not) happen in the former Soviet Union and
central and eastern European nations. Her sense of Soviet communism turns out
to be spot-on. In the meantime, Ruth and Joe build and maintain solidarity and
unity with apartheid opponents against an adversary with an overwhelming
military advantage. Nobody achieves such progress without allies and tenacity
and Wieder’s account of the ebbs and flows is fascinating.
Ruth and Joe work with
the African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party mainly.
Both groups help Ruth and Joe, on trial—in and out of prison and exile—fight
against the oppression of nonwhites in South Africa, as debates over dissident
practice and theory push and pull the revolutionaries along.
Joe shepherded legal
challenges of blacks and other nonwhites as an attorney. His plate is full with
that and leading underground military actions against the apartheid state,
helping to form the armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, in 1961.
In Ruth and Joe’s time
and now, South Africa is the site of vital natural resources for the global
economic system. That fact propels Ruth to write articles, books, and reports
on how people live and work on the African continent and the impacts of Western
settler colonialism. She collaborated with scores of freedom fighters. One is
Walter Rodney, the late author and activist from Guyana, the former British
colony, who wrote the landmark How Europe Underdeveloped Africa in 1972.
Ruth more than holds her
own in a male-dominated era. She is a whirlwind of activity, researching,
mentoring, and teaching in nations such Angola and Mozambique. Wieder
highlights how patriarchy is no peripheral issue, but central to human
liberation struggles. It was a man’s world then, not so much now, the result of
mass politics.
Wrestling with internal
and external factors and forces involved with resisting apartheid complicated
Ruth and Joe’s marriage. How they reared three daughters through this fire
boggles the mind, on which Wieder presents ample perspectives. His primary and
secondary research describes and analyzes the risks and rewards this activist
couple encountered battling South Africa’s law enforcement policies such as the
“pass laws” to restrict nonwhites’ mobility—think of New York City’s “stop and
frisk” policing that targets blacks and Latinos on steroids.
Opposing apartheid drew
Ruth and Joe deep into the economics and politics of South Africa and kept them
there for a sustained campaign to create a new order. Thanks to Wieder, we can
savor their work to birth an all-racial society from the ashes of a whites-only
regime.
Z
Seth Sandronsky writes and lives in
Sacramento, California.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Durham North Carolina - October 22nd
I will talk on Ruth and Joe at The Regulator in Durham, NC on October 22nd. Details below
Durham, NC – October 22
The Regulator
7 pm
720 Ninth St
Durham, NC 27705
Friday, October 11, 2013
Bluestockings Bookstore NYC - October 17th
The New York African Group Announcement of next Thursday's NYC event
Thursday, October 17, 2013
New book on anti-apartheid leaders - meet the author
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A new book tells the story of Ruth First and Joe Slovo, husband and wife. They were among the leaders of the war to end apartheid in South Africa. Communists, scholars, parents, and uncompromising militants, they were the perfect enemies for the white police state. Together they were swept up in the growing resistance to apartheid, and together they experienced repression and exile.
Join author and South Africa historian Alan Wieder for a discussion of his new book, Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War against Apartheid. Weider's earlier writings include Voices From Capetown - the oral histories of twenty South African teachers who connected pedagogy and politics to fight against the apartheid regime. Teaching in so-called coloured schools, these teachers with the fighting spirit stressed nonracialism and democracy in their work with students. Although their lives were deeply affected by apartheid, it never stole their hearts, minds or souls. Their work helped lead to the election of Nelson Mandela as the first democratic leader South Africa in 1994.
Wieder is an oral historian who lives in Portland, Oregon. He is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina and has also taught at the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University in South Africa. In the last ten years he has published two books and numerous articles on South Africans who fought against the apartheid regime.
This book is a gripping social history, a love song to the revolution, and a passionate and enlightening portrait of a partnership, a love-affair, and two extraordinary activists who cast their fates with the dreams of people everywhere for justice and freedom.
—Bill Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn
Busboys and Poets Washington DC -- October 16th
I am privileged to talk next Wednesday evening at Busboys and Poets in Washington. Below is the bookstore notice of the event
Author Event - Alan Wieder
14th & V | Langston Room | October 16,2013 | 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Teaching for Change's Busboys and Poets Bookstore welcomes Alan Wieder to discuss and sign his new book, Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War against Apartheid
Ruth First and Joe Slovo, husband and wife, were leaders
of the war to end apartheid in South Africa. Communists, scholars,
parents, and uncompromising militants, they were the perfect enemies for
the white police state. Together they were swept up in the growing
resistance to apartheid, and together they experienced repression and
exile. Their contributions to the liberation struggle, as individuals
and as a couple, are undeniable. Ruth agitated tirelessly for the
overthrow of apartheid, first in South Africa and then from abroad, and
Joe directed much of the armed struggle carried out by the famous
Umkhonto we Sizwe. Only one of them, however, would survive to see the
fall of the old regime and the founding of a new, democratic South
Africa. This book, the first extended biography of Ruth First and Joe
Slovo, is a remarkable account of one couple and the revolutionary
moment in which they lived. Alan Wieder's deeply researched work draws
on the usual primary and secondary sources but also an extensive oral
history that he has collected over many years. By weaving the
documentary record together with personal interviews, Wieder portrays
the complexities and contradictions of this extraordinary couple and
their efforts to navigate a time of great tension, upheaval, and
revolutionary hope.
Sponsors:
Monday, October 7, 2013
Radio Interview
Had the privilege yesterday of being interviewed Jared Ball's ImiXwhatIlike: Emancipating Journalism and broadcasting show. You can liste to our conversation on line at:
imixwhatilike.org
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