Cape Radicals (eBook)

Intellectual and political thought of the New Era Fellowship, 1930s-1960s

Crain Soudien (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019 | Main
Wits University Press (Verlag)
9781776143498 (ISBN)

Infos

In this fascinating and readable book educationist Crain Soudien offers an insight into the work of a group of young Capetonian socialist intellectuals whose aim was to disrupt and challenge not only prevailing political narratives but the very premises – class and race – on which they were based.

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In 1937 a group of young Capetonians, socialist intellectuals from the Workers' Party of South Africa and the Non-European Unity Movement, embarked on a remarkable public education and cultural project they called the New Era Fellowship (NEF). Taking a position of non-collaboration and non-racialism, the NEF played a vital role in challenging society's responses to events ranging from the problem of taking up arms during the Second World War for an empire intent on stripping people of colour of their human rights to the Hertzog Bills, which foreshadowed apartheid. The group included some of the city's most talented scholar-activists, among them Isaac Tabata, Ben Kies, A C Jordan, Phyllis Ntantala, Mda Mda and members of the famed Gool and Abdurahman families, whose aim was to disrupt and challenge not only prevailing political narratives but the very premises - class and race - on which they were based. By the 1950s their ideas had spread to a second generation of talented individuals who would disseminate them in the high schools of Cape Town. In time, some would exert their influence on national politics beyond the confines of the Cape. Among these were former minister of justice, Dullah Omar, academic Hosea Jaffe, educationist Neville Alexander and author Richard Rive. This book is a testament to how the NEF was at the forefront of redefining the discourse of racialism and nationalism in South Africa.

Inhalt

Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1 A Battle of Ideas Chapter 2 Planters of the Seed Chapter 3 ‘Anything Under the Sun’ – The Formation of the NEF Chapter 4 Honest, Sincere and Fearless – 1937-1940 Chapter 5 The Road to Emancipation – 1940-1953 Chapter 6 A Cauldron of Conflict Chapter 7 Legacy Notes List of Illustrations Bibliography Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.6.2019
• Zusatzinfo: 30 black and white illustrations
• Verlagsort: Johannesburg
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• ISBN-13: 9781776143498 / 9781776143498