Skip to content

From The Thornveld

there is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,

    • About the writer
    • Sharp Thoughts
    • Book Reviews
    • Memoirs
    • Miscellaneous
    • Reflections on the Rainbow Nation
    • Sharp Sharp
    • Contact Me
    • Privacy Policy
  • About the writer
  • Sharp Thoughts
  • Book Reviews
  • Memoirs
  • Miscellaneous
  • Reflections on the Rainbow Nation
  • Sharp Sharp
  • Contact Me
  • Privacy Policy

Category: Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

  • Reflections on the Rainbow Nation: Myth and Reality in South Africa’s History

    PREFACE Over the years Pietermaritzburg’s daily newspaper, The Witness, was kind enough to publish my opinion pieces and the occasional feature article. For a while the former appeared in the series ‘New Ground’, along with […]

    December 12, 2017Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

     
  • Introduction

    IT was a remarkable, passionate outburst of the sort for which Desmond Tutu has become famous. In November 2011 he roundly denounced the South African government over its failure (again) to issue the Dalai Lama […]

    December 12, 2017Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

     
  • 1. John William Colenso: human rights activist?

    DURING November 2003 the Anglican Diocese of Natal marked its 150th anniversary. Inevitably many of the celebrations focused on its first bishop, John William Colenso (1818−1883), who lived at the Ekukhanyeni mission just outside Pietermaritzburg […]

    December 12, 2017Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

     
  • 2. Edendale: Kholwa identity and survival

    EDENDALE municipality has never existed, but it should have done. James Allison, the dissident Wesleyan missionary, arrived in Natal from Swaziland in 1847 with a destitute refugee community of 400 that had originated in Transorangia and settled […]

    December 12, 2017Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

     
  • 3. Natives Land Act: pariahs in their own land

    ‘AWAKING on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.’ This is Sol Plaatjie’s memorable verdict on the Natives […]

    December 12, 2017Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

     
  • 4. A charter for freedom

    THREE trucks left Pietermaritzburg in mid-June 1955 en route to the Congress of the People at Kliptown, Johannesburg. Some of their passengers were from the Indian community and they lacked the required permits to travel to the […]

    December 12, 2017Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

     
  • 5. New Age: two newspapers, same name, different times

    THE ANC has persistently grumbled about the media and threatened for some while to launch its own daily newspaper. Backed by Gupta family money, its long-delayed appearance last month was somewhat ironic given the name of […]

    December 12, 2017Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

     
  • 6. State of Emergency, 1960: the onset of a police state

    ‘WE do not know how long comment in this or any other newspaper in South Africa will remain free.’ That was the grim opening to the main leader in the Natal Witness on 31 March 1960. The […]

    December 12, 2017Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

     
  • 7. Robert Sobukwe: intellectual and charismatic leader

    HE might well have been the first black leader of a free South Africa. The apartheid government saw him as so formidable an opponent that at the end of his three-year sentence for incitement it passed the […]

    December 12, 2017Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

     
  • 8. Ruth First: martyr for a free South Africa

    AFTER Ruth First was released from detention she wrote presciently that ‘it was not the end … they would come again.’ Indeed they did, with a letter bomb delivered to the Centre for African Studies […]

    December 12, 2017Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

     

Posts navigation

1 2 3 4 5 … 8 Next

Recent Posts

  • Blood has a Voice: Stories from the Autopsy Table
  • Statues and Storms: Leading through Change
  • The betrayal of academic custodianship and the rise of the disciplinary university
  • Eskom: Power, Politics and the (Post) Apartheid State
  • Rhoda: A Biography

Archives

  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016

Categories

  • Book Reviews
  • Memoirs
  • Miscellaneous
  • Reflections on the Rainbow Nation
  • Sharp Sharp
  • Sharp Thoughts

Theme by AcademiaThemes

Copyright © 2023 From The Thornveld