Lecture
ASCL Seminar: South African Elections Approach: Has the Liberation Dream been Realised?
- Date
- Wednesday 1 May 2019
- Time
- Location
-
Pieter de la Court
Wassenaarseweg 52
2333 AK Leiden - Room
- Room SB11
On the occasion of the upcoming South African elections, the African Studies Centre Leiden has invited Barry Gilder to give a lecture. Barry Gilder is one of South Africa’s most important revolutionaries that fought against apartheid. Barry Gilder is currently Director Operations of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) in South Africa. He served in the Secret Service and the National Intelligence Agency, from 2005 until 2007 as South Africa’s Coordinator for Intelligence.
Barry Gilder will speak about his books 'The List' and 'Songs and Secrets', and will reflect on the South African elections of 8 May 2019.
About 'The List':
Rumours have abounded since the early days of South African democracy, of a list given to Nelson Mandela by apartheid securocrats of their agents infiltrated into the upper echelons of the ANC during the struggle years. These rumours gained new currency with the death of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in April 2018 and the revelations of the machinations of apartheid’s Stratcom securocrats.
The List tells the story of a group of veterans of MK (uMkhonto weSizwe), of ANC intelligence and of the post-apartheid intelligence service, who are formed into a highly secret task team by the newly elected president to investigate the possibility of such remnants of apartheid security threatening to sabotage the radical changes he is planning. The book follows these veterans and their nemeses through the struggle years, exile, the MK camps and into the years of democracy and hope, disillusion and hope again. And then observes while the struggle veterans painstakingly attempt to pick through the detritus of the old regime in the new. But just as the moment of optimism begins to blossom, the task team uncovers a ghastly betrayal. Is it too late to save the President and the country?
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