Abdullah Ibrahim In The 1960s: How The Famous Pianist Began To Shape An African Jazz Sound

BY STEPHANIE VOS

POST0DOCTORAL FELLOW

STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSTY

The 1960s is a significant era in Abdullah Ibrahim’s story. It’s a time when the South African master’s international career as a jazz pianist was gradually established and he laid the foundations for the signature sound that is recognised today as people reflect on his passing.

He is best remembered for evoking soundscapes that are recognisably South African: harmonisations of church hymns, Cape Town’s ghoema rhythms and Islamic calls to prayer. His delivery in performance was characterised by a sophisticated simplicity and spaciousness.

This musical turn is mimicked by a spiritual one that culminated in his conversion to Islam and name change from Dollar Brand to Abdullah Ibrahim in 1968.

The World of Dollar Brand was a series of articles that Ibrahim wrote and published in the Cape Herald newspaper in 1968 and 1969. They reveal some of his travails and musical developments after he had gone into exile in Europe in 1962.

As I outline in my study of South African jazz artists and exile, to call this time exile for Ibrahim is perhaps a misnomer. He and his wife, jazz artist and activist Sathima Bea Benjamin, returned to South Africa from July 1968 to May 1969, and again in 1970 and 1974.

As South Africa became remote as a physical presence, however, it gained presence in the poetics of Ibrahim’s sound and discourse. These early years of his absence from South Africa present the lesser known corners of his musical career.

Yet through his music, writing and interviews of this time we can trace how Ibrahim imagined and contructed Africa musically, negotiating an African-rooted sense of identity.

The ‘exile’ years

Born in Cape Town in 1934, Adolph Johannes (Dollar) Brand had been a prolific pianist in the nightclub circuit in South Africa since he was 17 years old.

By the time he and Benjamin left South Africa in 1962, he had a solid reputation. He had collaborated on South Africa’s first bebop record, the Jazz Epistles’ Verse 1, with South African jazz luminaries like Kippie Moeketsi, Hugh Masekela and Jonas Gwangwa.

In her biography, Benjamin recalls the couple were “literally starving for lack of opportunities” in a time of white minority rule and apartheid. A state of emergency declared after the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 stifled the South African jazz scene. With the help of a personal friend, Paul Meyer, Ibrahim and Benjamin left for Zurich.

They arrived in the bitter cold of a Swiss winter to a room infested with bedbugs, and struggled to find work. Ibrahim wrote in the Cape Herald that his initial point of contact in Zurich was Club Africana, but they found his music “too modern”. He finally “managed to strike the right note” with the club’s managers – implying some form of musical compromise on his part – and secured a residency for four and a half months a year with fellow South Africans Johnny Gertze on bass and Makaya Ntshoko on drums.

Despite these adversities, this was a time of great development in Ibrahim’s sound. He put in intensive hours of piano practice, even turning to physical exercise to “sustain a long period of two-handed attack”. He honed his skills as a solo performer, and changed his approach to composition:

A lot of the (mostly American-derived) forms I had been working with in South Africa had become restrictive. I moulded new pieces which allowed me unfettered freedom and improvisation … lots of rhythmic patterns using the pulse … as the foundation.

Ibrahim’s early compositions The Stride, Machopi or Bra Joe From Kilimanjaro are examples of this sound.

The focus on pulse (the steady, smallest beats of music) as opposed to beats organised into metre (typically blocks of two, three or four beats that form a steady, repeating pattern, for example ONE two three ONE two three) signals that Ibrahim’s ear was trained on African modes of organising sound.

Cyclical repetitions of short riffs in the bass provide the structure of the piece, with the right hand freely improvising over it. This short cycle is a hallmark of many African musical traditions.

An encounter with Duke Ellington

A key event of Ibrahim’s time in Zurich was his encounter with US jazz star Duke Ellington in 1963. The story is well-known. Ellington was performing in Zurich and Benjamin convinced him to come and listen to a set of the Dollar Brand Trio. Clearly impressed, Ellington invited Benjamin and Brand to record with him in Paris a few weeks later.

This resulted in two albums: Duke Ellington presents the Dollar Brand Trio (1964), and Benjamin’s A Morning in Paris (only released in 1997). Ellington’s endorsement undoubtedly opened doors for Ibrahim, though it would be several years before his career took off.

brahim’s travels between 1962 and 1965 reveal the difficulties of securing a living. He performed at European festivals and did residencies. Stints from 1963 to 1965 at Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen resulted in the live recording released as Anatomy of a South African Village (1965) and Round Midnight at the Montmartre (only released in 1988).

Here some of his “new forms” are audible. After a period in London, Ibrahim and Benjamin moved to New York in 1965. The city became their home for the next four decades.

A solo concert

Ibrahim played his first solo concert in the famed Carnegie Hall on 10 October 1965, launching him into the New York jazz scene in a symbolically significant way.

The concert was largely self-arranged, which struck the pianist as remarkably similar to his concert arrangement efforts when he was still in South Africa.

In this concert, his preference for solo piano performance is already noticeable. In the Cape Herald he observed:


The usual line-up of bass and drums was becoming too restricted and it was quite difficult to find a bass player who could play the fast figures I wanted.

These were difficult years for Ibrahim. Despite generous assistance from the Ellingtons, he could find no work. He poured himself into practice, studying scores, remarking:

The solo piano form was beginning to take shape.
Conversion to Islam

Ibrahim and Benjamin returned to South Africa for 10 months in 1968 and 1969. It was during this time that Dollar Brand converted to Islam. Ibrahim recounts a period of cleansing and spiritual exploration that led to his conversion.

It mirrored the technical development in his musical practices, which Ibrahim said in an interview on BBC radio was connected with internal development.

According to a review in the Cape Herald of the first concert he played in Kensington, Cape Town, however, he had left his audience behind in his musical developments. Although the figure that walked onto the stage “was the old scruffy, well-loved Dollar all right”, the reviewer reports that “Dollar began playing for Dollar, way-out stuff started soaring right above the heads of the audience”. The audience whispered, they fidgeted, and then “started shouting ‘Go back to America’.”

Ibrahim had lost his Cape Town audiences by 1968, his music reconnected with them when he returned in 1974. With producer Rashid Vally he recorded one of his best known albums, Mannenberg – is where it’s happening (1974).

In the track Mannenberg the musical short cycle features again, but this time in the familiar form of the marabi pattern, a mainstay of South African jazz since the 1920s, which forms the backbone of this piece.

Coupled with the distinct saxophone timbres of Cape Town musicians Robbie Jansen and Basil Coetzee, these are the sounds that became synonymous with a home that was only available to Ibrahim imaginatively, sonically, after he left the country in 1974 into what became definitive exile.

They will be the soundtrack to a free memorial concert in honour of his passing in Cape Town on 29 June.

Ibrahim’s writing in the Cape Herald is referenced in this article. The anti-apartheid newspaper closed in 1986 and while these articles are available in archives, there isn’t a link to them online.

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Money, Food And Survival: What Drives Paid Sex Among Young Mums In 3 African Countries

Transactional sex is a coping strategy for some adolescents. Stephane de Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images

ANTHONY IDOWU AJAYI, BERYL NYATUGA MACHOKA AND CAROLINE W. KABIRU

Transactional sex, defined as the exchange of sex for money, food, or favours, is common among young people in Africa. Studies have reported that about 10% of those aged 15-24 have engaged in this exchange in South Africa, 23% in Nigeria and 25% in Uganda. The behaviour has been linked to negative consequences such as unintended pregnancy, sexual violence and HIV infections.

Transactional sex refers to sexual relationships outside marriage that are not classified as commercial sex work, but where there is an expectation that material, financial or other benefits will be exchanged for intimacy or companionship.

We are sexual and reproductive health researchers focused on the intersection of evidence, policy, and lived realities of adolescents in Africa. We recently examined the extent and drivers of transactional sex among pregnant and parenting adolescents in three African countries: Burkina Faso, Kenya and Malawi.

In our earlier qualitative research work with pregnant and parenting girls in Nairobi’s informal settlements, we found that pregnancy intensified economic insecurity. The focus of government and most NGOs, however is mainly on preventing adolescent pregnancy. Little attention is paid to the plight and realities of pregnant and parenting girls.

Our research set out to bring attention to these girls. We did this by examining the prevalence and correlates of transactional sex among adolescents in Burkina Faso, Kenya and Malawi. We surveyed 2,243 girls: 980 in Ouagadogou, Burkina Faso; 594 in Korogocho, Nairobi, Kenya; and 669 in Blantyre, Malawi. They were all either pregnant or already parenting. The youngest participants were 12 years old in Burkina Faso and 13 years old in Kenya and Malawi. The oldest girls in all three countries were 19.

Our findings indicated that transactional sex prevalence varied by context. Living in urban informal settlement environments was a risk. The results were a reminder of the need for stronger support systems for adolescents engaged in transactional sex across the three countries, including those who are pregnant or parenting.

Our findings

Our study found that 44.3% of the girls we surveyed in Kenya, 25.4% in Burkina Faso, and 13.0% in Malawi had engaged in transactional sex at some time. The particularly high prevalence in Kenya reflects the study setting in one of Nairobi’s densely populated informal settlements. There, adolescent girls face poverty, unstable support systems, unsafe living conditions, and limited opportunities for self-development. Other studies have also shown that prevalence is lower in other settings outside informal settlements.

The most common reason girls gave for engaging in transactional sex was money. Money was a reason reported by 31.3% of participants in Kenya, 20.5% in Burkina Faso, and 7.8% in Malawi. But girls also reported exchanging sex for food, rent, shelter, clothing, school fees and sanitary pads.

In Kenya, 13.5% specifically cited sanitary pads, compared to 1.0% in Burkina Faso and 1.8% in Malawi. Smaller percentages engaged in transactional sex for school fees, phones or airtime, or other needs such as baby supplies (milk, diapers, clothes).

Individual-level factors

At the individual level, being single increased the likelihood of transactional sex across all three countries. In Burkina Faso, 20% of married and 46% of single girls had transactional sex. In Kenya it was 28% of married girls and 50% of single girls. In Malawi it was 10% of married girls and 16% of single girls.

This suggests that having a partner may provide some degree of financial, material and childcare support. Without support, single adolescent mothers may face pregnancy and early motherhood with very limited resources, increasing their vulnerability to transactional relationships.

One of the surprising findings emerged from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. There, 31% of adolescents with a secondary education had engaged in transactional sex, against 21% of those with only a primary education. This challenges the common assumption that education is an immediate shield against exploitation. It suggests that remaining in school may itself become financially difficult for adolescent girls living under poverty and weak support systems. For girls who are in school from a poor background, the need for money, food and school fees may make them engage in transactional sex.

Substance use also more than doubled the risk in Burkina Faso, among girls who reported using alcohol or drugs compared to those who did not. This association was not significant in Kenya or Malawi.

Interpersonal-level factors

At the interpersonal level, orphanhood mattered, though differently across countries.

In Malawi, girls who had lost both parents faced nearly double the risk of engaging in transactional sex, compared with non-orphans. In Kenya, girls who had lost one parent were 43% more likely to engage in transactional sex. Even more significant at the interpersonal level was the impact of low parental support in Malawi, where girls who felt unsupported by their parents were three times more likely to engage in transactional sex.

Community-level factors

We asked participants questions to assess how safe they felt in their neighbourhoods. In Kenya and Burkina Faso, a higher score for perceived neighbourhood safety was associated with a lower likelihood of transactional sex. Girls said they engaged in sex in exchange for security and protection. In Malawi, feeling safe didn’t make a difference.

What needs to change

The study demonstrates that transactional sex among pregnant and parenting adolescents is less a choice than a strategy to cope with severe socioeconomic hardship. It is shaped by distinct individual risks, fracturing family support and community insecurity.

What drives transactional sex changes from country to country. Because of this, programmes to address it need to be customised for each specific place.

Interventions should address structural vulnerabilities and strengthen family and community support systems. They must also improve neighbourhood safety to reduce adolescent mothers’ reliance on transactional sex and the harms associated with it.

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Xenophobia In South Africa: State’s Complicity With Gangs And Vigilantes Is Threatening Its Ability To Govern

An anti-immigrant march in South Africa, June 2026. Screengrab/YouTube/Al Jazeera English

BY LOREN B. LANDAU AND JEAN PIERRE MISAGO

Marches, Mozambicans murdered, state-sponsored evacuations, a nationally televised presidential address. Anti-immigrant mobilisation has again drawn the world’s attention to South Africa. The continental backlash threatens tourism, trade, diplomacy and investment opportunities in Africa’s largest economy, and is derailing its constitutional democracy.

Many citizens demand the country restore its sovereignty – the state’s ability to govern itself and determine its own laws within its borders – by tightening border controls. Parties promise to deliver walls, raids and deportations.

What these popular debates over sovereignty and border control overlook is that politics is not defined on the borders. It comes from control over resources and production. In South Africa’s past, this was mines. Now it is cities, townships, and the infrastructure that connects them. This is where the country’s political future is being forged. This is where sovereignty is being lost. And the state is helping to make this happen.

Over the past 20 years, we have investigated the politics of migration and xenophobia in South Africa. Together we founded Xenowatch and the Mobility Governance Lab to document incidents of xenophobic discrimination and evaluate strategies to promote secure mobility and social cohesion.

In a paper published in 2022 we argued that xenophobic mobilisation in South Africa was not merely a grassroots phenomenon by frustrated communities. Nor is it the result of a “third force” or external actors out to embarrass the country. Rather, we argue, it is a political enterprise co-produced by vigilante groups and the state through acts of commission and omission. These include failing to censure those who exclude through violence and other forms of illegal conduct. It also includes migration policies and practices that demonise those from other countries.

This has resulted in the state consistently legitimising and rewarding the criminal conduct of vigilante groups.

Our research shows that xenophobic discrimination has become a feature of post-apartheid South Africa’s socio-political landscape. We argue that the only interventions capable of disrupting xenophobic mobilisation are those that lower, or ideally eliminate, its political, economic and social benefits. This must include holding people accountable for their actions, consistent and impartial application of the law to address both illegal migration and criminal vigilante exclusion of migrants, and joint efforts by the state and civil society to counter anti-migrant mobilisation.

On the ground

Our investigations show that in townships, “community development” associations run protection rackets determining who can live, build, or conduct business in their “communities”. They work in collaboration with local police to remove unwanted people.

Elected leaders often look away or embrace them to win votes. This is not about enforcing law or creating opportunities for all. It is not about immigration control. It is about using social division to extract resources and build power. There is often strong local support for these measures and those leading them. However, they are illegal and institutionalise state complicity in extractive violence that weakens, rather than enforces, the rule of law.

From mid-2025, Operation Dudula – an anti-immigrant social movement that has now registered as a political party – and March and March – a self-described “grassroots” civic organisation focused on illegal immigration – systematically blockaded public health facilities, denying migrants access to at least 53 clinics across KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Gauteng provinces.

The South African Human Rights Commission found that despite engagement with the Department of Health and the National Commissioner of Police (both of which committed to intervening) vigilante conduct continued. In some instances the police refused to take statements from victims.

Despite court rulings interdicting Operation Dudula, the unlawful operations continued across the country.

Without state enforcement, court orders are only paper. Rather than being sanctioned, March and March confirmed that it had

an agreement with the SAPS (South African Police Service) and Metro Police, which don’t interfere with them.

A co-authored political enterprise

Between 2022 and 2025, Xenowatch recorded 406 verified incidents resulting in 75 deaths. This translates into an average of 102 xenophobic discrimination incidents per year.

In 2025 alone, 151 incidents were recorded. In the first five months of 2026, a further 22 verified incidents were recorded. Of the 22 incidents, 14 were violent attacks that largely followed anti-migrant protests in some parts of the country.

The recent attacks resulted in at least four people dead and hundreds displaced. Despite this, officials regularly argue this is “normal” criminality. In 2008, 2010, and again in 2026, there have been accusations of a third force determined to undermine the country’s successes or punish it for its positions on Israel and Russia.

Rather than intervene effectively, the government has addressed the rise of these political formations with a National Action Plan on Racism and Xenophobia. It contains almost no plan. Rather than marshal state resources against the anti-immigrant campaigns, it focuses on education and public events intended to foster goodwill and social cohesion. Debates and dialogues are welcome. But they do little to erode the power of gangsters and criminal networks.

When the state has acted, it helps reinforce precisely the kind of political fragmentation and profit taking it purports to prevent. Its largest police operation to protect foreigners – Operation Fiela – resulted in police demanding additional bribes from migrants, a loss of economic activity and tax revenue, and only a small reduction in immigrant numbers.

All this was done in the name of restoring citizens’ faith in the immigration system. There were winners: not immigrants or citizens, but law enforcers who line their pockets and boost their operational budgets.

A recent meeting convened at the official seat of government, the Union Buildings, provides another example. On 25 May 2026, senior government ministers convened a high-level meeting with the leadership of March and March and other organisations “to address illegal immigration and the rise in anti-immigration protests in the country”.

In our view, granting groups like this access to the highest political office lends them legitimacy and gives them a place in the South African political system. Their words are broadcast on national television and radio stations. Their ultimatums come to represent legitimate political demands.

The state may temporarily quell crises. But it emboldens these groups to carry on. The results are a politics of fragmentation and self-made laws.

What needs to be done

Protecting South Africa’s constitutional democracy requires three things done simultaneously.

First, genuine accountability for perpetrators: not symbolic arrests, but prosecutions that result in meaningful consequences for instigators and perpetrators.

Second, consistent and impartial enforcement of the rule of law to address both illegal migration and criminal vigilante exclusion of migrants.

Third, the building of political will and muscle by the state and civil society, to hold politicians accountable when their rhetoric or conduct emboldens exclusionary violence and practices. This is not an issue of migration management and border control. It is one of sovereignty and law.

Civil society organisations are already pursuing litigation and winning cases in court. But court orders flouted with impunity are not victories; they are further evidence of the problem. Without the political muscle to hold the state accountable for its complicity, the co-creation of exclusion will continue.

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The Story Behind Soweto Blues, Miriam Makeba’s Famous Song About The June 16 Uprising

Miriam Makeba in 1969 in exile. Rob Mieremet/Nationaal Archief, CC BY

BY GWEN ANSELL

ASSOCIATE OF THE GORDON 

INSTITUTE FOR BUSINESS SCIENCE,

UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA

Miriam Makeba sang a famous song about the 16 June 1976 uprising in her birthplace, South Africa. The protest was a pivotal point in the fight against apartheid and white minority rule in the country. The song was called Soweto Blues and its opening lines go:

The children got a letter from the Master.

It said no more Xhosa, Sotho, no more Zulu

Refusing to comply they sent an answer

That’s when the policemen came…

The song recalls the events of that day when South African schoolchildren, marching peacefully in Soweto to protest the imposition of Afrikaans as an official language of instruction alongside English in Black schools, were shot down by the police of the apartheid regime.

Soweto Blues was also the title chosen by my publishers for the cover of my historical research on the politics of South African jazz and popular music.

Many high school students in South Africa – and many of their teachers – were not fluent in Afrikaans, seen as the language of the oppressor. The move was part of a push, dubbed “Bantu Education”, to reduce Black education and cut it off from international opportunities and “subversive” English-language ideas. The system’s architect, Hendrik Verwoerd, had declared that Black children must never be educated above the level of “hewers of wood and drawers of water”.

Soweto Blues is one of the two compositions most closely associated with the events of June 16. The other, Isililo (Tears of Soweto), from Sakhile, was written in retrospect, in 1982, as the group’s co-leader, saxophonist Khaya Mahlangu, reflected on his nightmare memories of Soweto on that day.

But Soweto Blues was written hot, as the news of the massacre reached the world. The story of the song is a story of solidarity with the struggle against apartheid across the African continent.

Composed and recorded in Kumasi, Ghana

Ask who composed the song, and the answer is likely to be trumpeter Hugh Masekela and/or his ex wife Miriam Makeba. The song, officially released in 1977 by Makeba, is best-known in the version released on her 1989 album, Welela.

The lyrics are instantly recognisable as being penned by Masekela the rhymer – “Just a little atrocity/Deep in the city”.

But the melody tells a bigger, pan-African story. It was co-written by the trumpeter and guitarist Stanley Kwesi Todd, founder of Ghanaian ensemble Hedzoleh (“freedom”) Sounds.

Masekela was introduced to the west Africans by Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti in 1973, and the collaboration produced three albums led by his name: Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz (1973); I Am Not Afraid (1974); and The Boy’s Doin’ It (1975).

But there were other collaborations between Kwesi and Masekela too, including the 1977 You Told Your Mama Not to Worry. That was recorded in Kumasi, Ghana with Kwesi as co-producer, and released in the US by the new Casablanca label, before that imprint settled into a pop and disco music identity.

Makeba came from her exile home in Guinea to record; there were compositions by Masekela and Todd, tunes adapted from tradition, and a title track about exile composed by South African singer and songwriter Letta Mbulu. Soweto Blues closed the A-side. The original album, regrettably, is currently hard to find.

A marketable title

So how did it end up as my book title? It wasn’t my intention.

The main title I wanted was Black Heroes, alluding to a 1976 Tete Mbambisa tune paying tribute to both the young martyrs of ‘76 and to US jazz star John Coltrane. That seemed to me to sum up the relationship between South African and Black American jazz as torches lighting the way to freedom.

But it appeared that “somebody in marketing” didn’t think the two words “Black” plus “Heroes”, would sell. “Aren’t there any other song titles that might be catchier?” A back-and-forth ensued, until Soweto Blues came up. “That’s it! 'Soweto’ always sells!”

The 1976 uprising sparked in Soweto, but spread across the country, from the urban settlements of Langa and Gugulethu in the Cape to the rural villages of the North West province. Parents scoured mortuaries for their dead children, many of whom had apparently been shot in the back. Nobody knows precisely how many died, but the national figure is estimated as well north of 700.

And just as the rising itself cannot be narrowed to what happened in Soweto – even if the name “sells” – so the song paying tribute cannot be confined to South Africa alone. It came from a trumpet-player exiled in the US, a singer sheltered by Guinea, and a musician born in Ghana.

Half a century later, the words of the song still have lessons about the events of June 16. The story of its creation teaches too: about a shared African history in which borders did not define humanity.

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South Africans Are Far Less Tolerant Of Migrants Than Before – Hotspots, Drivers And Solutions

BY STEVEN GORDON

CHIEF RESEARCH SPECIALIST,

HUMAN SCIENCES RESEARCH

COUNCIL

Anti-immigrant marches in several major South African cities (such as Tshwane and Johannesburg) in early May 2026 once again led to questions being asked about xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa.

In the wake of the protests President Cyril Ramaphosa called on South Africans to embrace solidarity with their African neighbours. For their part, foreign governments lodged their protests while police sought to curtail violence.

The tension in the country was palpable.

Are the recent outbreaks of anti-immigrant activism a harbinger of a wider uptick in anti-migrant sentiment amongst South Africans? Recent public opinion data from the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) suggests that this might be the case.

The HSRC’s South African Social Attitudes Survey is an important source of information on what ordinary South Africans think about international migration. The survey series consists of nationally representative, repeated cross-sectional surveys that have been conducted annually by the HSRC since 2003.

The latest data, from the 2025 survey, show that South Africans are more hostile towards immigrants than at any other time before since the survey began in 2003. An important dimension of the change has been an attitudinal shift and hardening of attitudes towards migrants among poorer and working-class adults. In addition, the recent growth of anti-immigrant sentiment has been geographically concentrated in four provinces: Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal.

The rise in anti-immigrant sentiment is particularly concerning given that the country is due to hold local government elections on 4 November 2026. Aspirant political parties, in an attempt to maintain or gain power, may seek to exploit anti-immigrant sentiment for their own ends. In this way elections can provide a potential accelerant for xenophobia.

Growing hostility may even provoke xenophobic violence in a country that has a long history of collective anti-immigrant hate crime. and is home to more than two million international migrants.

Declining Hospitality

South African Social Attitudes Survey has included the following in its questionnaire since 2003:

Please indicate which of the following statements applies to you? I generally welcome to South Africa… (i) All immigrants; (ii) Some immigrants; (iii) No immigrants; and (iv) Uncertain.

In 2003 about a third (34%) of the South African adult population said that they would welcome all immigrants. The remainder indicated that they would accept either none (32%) or some (35%).

The proportion of the public that would be prepared to welcome foreigners tended to fluctuate within a narrow band over the 2003-2017 period.

But around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the research data began to show an upswing in anti-immigrant sentiment.

About a quarter (26%) of those surveyed said that they would welcome all immigrants during the 2021 survey round. This was similar to figures in the mid-2010s.

But the share that held this hospitable attitude fell in subsequent survey rounds. In 2025 15% of adults said that they would welcome all foreigners.

Conversely, the proportion of the public adopting a hostile position (in other words ‘welcome no immigrants’) increased from 30% in 2021 to 42% in 2025.

Geography and class

The provinces with the highest growth in anti-immigrant sentiment – Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal – are ones through which most immigrants travel and often settle.

The situation has become particularly delicate in KwaZulu-Natal. The share of adults in the province who said that they would welcome no immigrants grew from 23% in 2021 to 45% in 2023 and then again to 60% in 2025.

The upsurge in hostility in KwaZulu-Natal could be linked to growing popular anger against the current economic and political status quo. A staggering 88% of provincial residents are unhappy with present economic conditions, and an equal proportion expect conditions to worsen over the next five years.

The notable attitudinal shift among poor people is also concerning.

South Africa is a highly unequal nation characterised by stark economic divisions. Most citizens can be found on the wrong side of these divides and could be classified as economically disadvantaged.

Historically, as research has shown, anti-immigrant sentiment in the country tended to cut across class divisions. But in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, something changed.

Before the pandemic, South African Social Attitudes Survey data showed a linear relationship between economic disadvantage and anti-immigrant sentiment. In the years following the pandemic, however, a clear pattern emerged. As the lockdowns ended and the post-pandemic recovery began, most socioeconomic groups in South Africa became more and more hostile towards immigrants. But antipathy grew at a much more aggressive rate for the low and lower middle socioeconomic groups.

During the 2025 survey round, adults in these groups were much more hostile towards foreigners than those in the upper middle and high socio-economic groups.

The drivers

What could have caused the economically disadvantaged to become more antagonistic towards immigrants over the last five years or so?

It could be argued that the poor have become more likely to scapegoat foreigners for the failures and inequalities of the post-pandemic economic recovery. Poor people have been badly affected by a cost of living crisis and persistent deindustrialisation. They need someone to blame and foreigners have long provided a handy scapegoat.

The South African economy has struggled in the last few years, dealing with doggedly high unemployment. The country also has notoriously high crime rates. Such problems, as experts have argued again and again, cannot be directly laid at the feet of immigrants living in the country. But it would appear that they are getting blamed anyway.

What should be done?

The South African government has a National Action Plan to Combat Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

Implemented in March 2019, one of its goals was to reduce public hostility towards migrants. Clearly, whether because of a lack of resources or government coordination, the plan has not succeeded.

The country needs to reinvigorate it and its associated processes. What’s needed is political, civic and community leaders to address legitimate socio-economic grievances without allowing immigrants to become scapegoats for deeper structural failures in society.

Efforts to strengthen social cohesion, improve economic inclusion, enhance public trust in governance and promote responsible political leadership are also crucial.

Well-provisioned and effective anti-xenophobia strategies are urgently required to address the worsening situation. The alternative is to allow hatred to flourish.

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Mopane Worm And Termite Sales Relieve Poverty In Rural South Africa – Studies Explore The Impact

Larvae of the mopane moth (Gonimbrasia belina), on a mopane tree (Colophospermum mopane). By SAplants - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, CC BY

BY NDIDZULAFHI INNOCENT SINTHUMULE

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF

JOHANNESBURG

South Africa’s Limpopo province borders Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique. It is one of the poorest provinces in the country. This is due to a combination of historical underdevelopment, a high unemployment rate, heavy reliance on government grants and a rural-based economy with limited industrial diversification.

It’s an interesting place for a geographer like me. My work brings together the themes of traditional ecological knowledge, environmental geography, conservation and society. My research looks at sustainable environmental outcomes by recognising the role of local culture, sacred sites and community practices in managing natural resources in southern Africa.

In two recent studies I explored how local communities in Limpopo are commercialising the harvesting of local insects to manage extreme poverty.

In one I explored the process involved in the commercialisation of mopane worms. Mopane worms (Gonimbrasia belina) are a nutritious, high-protein seasonal delicacy for many communities in Limpopo.

In a similar study, I turned to the harvesting and commercialisation of termite alates in Limpopo.

These resources are important for food security and poverty relief. Mopane worms and alate termites offer both high-quality nutrition and substantial income-generating opportunities for rural households. Both foods are traded in local and regional, formal and informal markets.

This enterprise is largely driven by unemployment, economic hardship, and the need for cash income in rural areas.

My research shows clearly that these resources play an important part in rural households and it’s important to manage them sustainably. One way of ensuring this happens is to tap into local knowledge.

As a separate study I did shows, traditional knowledge can help manage scarce resources by integrating customary rules, taboos and seasonal monitoring to prevent over-exploitation.

Mopane harvesting and trade

The mopane worm study took place in June and July 2023 in Muyexe and Nsavulani villages, Mopani District, Limpopo. The area is dominated by mopane woodlands, trees which are the main food of mopane worms (caterpillars). These villages have not benefited from development in the past and people depend heavily on natural resources for survival.

The processing of mopane worms (from harvesting to a marketable commodity) involves a series of traditional, manual steps to ensure quality. They are degutted (squeezing the caterpillar to remove stomach contents or frass), washed, boiled and dried to allow them to be stored for long periods. They are then graded and sold at home or in towns.

I chose 161 households in Muyexe village and 82 households in Nsavulani village as respondents, and interviewed villagers using a questionnaire. The questions covered:

the socio-economic profile of respondents

the availability and procurement, processing, marketing, trading and livelihood benefits of mopane worms.

The study found that most of the harvesters in Muyexe (69%) and Nsavulani (59%) villages were women. Almost all processed the worms at home. They collected the worms for both household consumption and trade. Those who traded worms reported making between R1,000 (US$54) and R3,000 (US$163) per season. There are two mopane seasons in Limpopo: November to January and April to May.

The study found that 55% of households in Muyexe village and 70% in Nsavulani village derived income only from mopane worm sales. (Individuals were under 60 and didn’t qualify for a social grant, or administered grants for children, nor for themselves.) Although the income earned from the sale of mopane worms is seasonal, communities appreciate it. Commercialising mopane worms contributed significantly to rural livelihoods. It is a crucial source of food security and cash income. This helps alleviate poverty and improves the lives and livelihoods of those involved in the business.

Termite harvesting and trade

In a similar study, I turned to the harvesting and commercialisation of termite alates in Limpopo. I interviewed 71 respondents in Thohoyandou and Sibasa towns (who came mainly from villages), as well as Mukula and Tshidzivhe villages, and found that these insects were harvested to eat at home and to sell.

Women of all ages were more involved than men in this enterprise, making up 75% of the respondents. Almost half had secondary education and 23% had tertiary education; 63% were self-employed. The majority lived below the upper bound poverty line of R1,558 (about US$95) per person per month. About 31% of the traders indicated that over the selling season (October to December), alates contributed up to 100% of the income in their households.

Management for the future

While commercialisation puts pressure on resources, traditional rules and local management protect the trees. In the study on traditional ecological knowledge, I found that the communities imposed rules that:

prohibited cutting of green branches

restricted harvesting during specific seasons to allow for maturity

prohibited tree damage during the mopane worm harvest.

Traditional ecological knowledge regulated the timing of harvest, protected host tree health, and ensured long-term livelihood security for local communities.

This shows that integrating local traditional ecological knowledge into harvesting practices is crucial for managing these resources sustainably.

Management strategies should be integrated into local and regional planning efforts. Efforts should also be made to communicate these strategies to relevant authorities to foster cooperation and raise awareness about the importance of mopane trees for all user groups.

To ensure the sustainable future of this woodland species, I recommend that the government work with traditional leaders and communities to support and enforce existing traditional practices.

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Chemical And Biological Warfare During The Rhodesian Bush War

BY CAPTAIN MATHEW TURNER

Abstract

The Rhodesian use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) during the Rhodesian Bush War remains a little-studied aspect of counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. While the program provided initial tactical advantages and caused thousands of guerrilla casualties, it ultimately failed to be militarily decisive.

Introduction

Chemical weapons have been employed as part of counterinsurgency (COIN) operations multiple times over the history of warfare. Examples include the Italian use of blister agents in the 1935-1936 invasion of Ethiopia, the use of German chemical weapons stocks by the Spanish and French during the Rif War in Morocco, and the rumored deployment of chemical weapons by the Soviets during the invasion of Afghanistan. However, the use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) by the embattled Rhodesian government during the 15-year Rhodesian Bush War remains little known.

On 11 November 1965, the apartheid colony of Rhodesia declared independence from the United Kingdom. What followed is now known as the Rhodesian Bush War, a prolonged and bloody guerrilla conflict. The struggle between the Rhodesian regime and the multiple guerrilla factions was complex and ever-shifting. A full description of this complex war is outside the scope of this article. However, the Rhodesian use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations remains unparalleled in both its effectiveness and brutality.

Rhodesian COIN Strategy

The Rhodesian COIN strategy is a textbook example of tactical success paired with strategic failure. By the end of the conflict, Rhodesian special forces – focused on rapid mobility, raids, and small-unit tactics – were considered some of the best COIN units in the world. Despite the overwhelming tactical advantage Rhodesian forces held on the battlefield, their COIN strategy culminated in a complete loss, as the regime refused to consider the possibility of compromise or winning the support of the majority African population until it was far too late.

By 1975, the Rhodesian regime’s initial successes in the war were rapidly eroding. As local support for the guerrillas grew, a new government sympathetic to the guerrilla cause arose in Mozambique, opening a second 1200-kilometer front. Forced to adapt due to an extreme lack of resources and manpower, Rhodesian forces adopted unconventional COIN tactics during the war’s final stage from 1976 to 1979. Chief among them was the deployment of CBW.

Dirty Tricks

The Rhodesian CBW project was proposed by Professor Robert Symington, a professor at the University of Rhodesia’s medical school. The Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) of the Rhodesian intelligence apparatus took over the project, which was implemented by a specialized branch of the Selous Scouts.

From its very beginning, between mid-1975 and mid-1976, the Rhodesian CBW program was “amateurish”, hindered by a significant lack of time, resources, and scientific competence. Most of the day-to-day processing typically only required two workers, typically medical or veterinary students.

The majority of Rhodesia’s CBW program was developed from cheap, readily available sources. Agricultural products, including pesticides and organophosphates, were purchased from commercial sources, as were products that were later found to be poisoned, such as clothing and food. The apartheid South African regime secretly provided funding and resources, but the full extent of South African involvement remains unclear.

The facilities for the program consisted of a laboratory built into Symington’s residence, as well as primitive facilities at 2 Selous Scouts forts, located in Bindura and Mount Darwin, respectively.

Production of CBW agents was as rudimentary as the available resources, facilities, and expertise would suggest. None of the chemicals used by the Rhodesians were produced on-site; instead, commercial pesticides and industrial supplies were adapted into rudimentary chemical weapons. Production was typically conducted on an as-needed basis, usually with specific guerrilla groups in mind.

Tactics – Area Denial

The overextended Rhodesian forces had previously attempted area denial tactics, the most notable being an extensive cordon sanitaire along the border with Mozambique. These efforts were ultimately inefficient and a waste of critically low resources.

The arid regions of Mozambique offered an opportunity for the CBW program. The Rhodesians employed a number of CBW agents to fill the gaps in the defenses, predominantly in the dry Gaza Province. Selous Scouts were reported to have dumped cholera in the Ruya River along the Mozambique border, and within Mozambique itself. Large areas of the border became “frozen zones” forbidden to all Rhodesian forces not part of the Selous Scouts, and the RSF were warned to stay a minimum of 4000 meters away from the Ruya River. Wells, slow-moving streams, stagnant water, and other potential water sources were contaminated by cholera and other poisons.

This strategy of area denial was initially effective; there were reports of hundreds of guerrilla deaths, and several guerrilla bases had to be evacuated due to cholera outbreaks. The logistical strain that this placed on guerrillas – now forced to carry their own water– also became a significant drain on guerrilla mobility and resources. Civilian casualties were also high; in one instance, 200 civilians near the Mozambique border died after the region’s sole water supply was poisoned.

Tactics – Local Poisonings

Guerrilla forces operating within Rhodesia were often highly dependent on support from the local African population, particularly in foodstuffs. Rhodesian intelligence targeted this logistical support, often providing villagers with supplies to secretly poison visiting guerrillas. Anecdotal reports of villagers with relatives in the Rhodesian army or police deliberately poisoning food spread through the ranks of the guerrillas. In one notable incident, 11 out of 32 guerrillas died from poisoned food after visiting a single village.

Villages suspected of poisoning guerrillas often faced violent reprisals. These violent reprisals often led to mistrust and suspicion between guerrillas and the local population, alienating the insurgency from a vital group of potential supporters.

Tactics – Poisoned Food

Beyond local poisonings within the villages, the Rhodesian CBW efforts also focused on the industrial poisonings of large amounts of canned beverages and canned meats. Thallium was used to poison foodstuffs such as canned meat, beans, and mealie meal.

Medicines were also often targeted – in one notable incident, a Special Branch officer recalled a group of 30 guerrillas that took several “vitamin pills” after a long night of drinking. Within several days, many of the guerrillas had gone blind, experienced gangrenous sores, and had even died – all symptoms of thallium poisoning. A number of outbreaks of thallium poisoning occurred in the civilian sphere, as well – in December 1977, nearly a dozen civilians died after purchasing thallium-poisoned canned meat at a local store. The local African population correctly assumed that the poisoning of the canned meat had been done intentionally.

Warfarin, a common chemical used as a rat poison, was also often used. In one April 1978 incident, over 200 guerrillas at a training camp had to be treated for severe warfarin poisoning, likely the result of warfarin mixed in with foodstuffs.

Tactics – Poisoned Clothes

The Rhodesian use of poisoned clothes was widely judged by the guerrillas as one of the most effective COIN strategies the regime employed.

Parathion was the primary chemical employed by the Rhodesian CBW program. A yellowish-brown organophosphate employed in pesticides, it may cause cholinergic poisoning within minutes to hours. At facilities such as the Bindura Fort, drums of parathion were poured out onto “large sheets of tin and dried in the sun. When the liquid had dried, the resulting flakes were scooped up and pounded into a mortar with a pestle. The powder was then brushed onto clothes…” The production process was crude, and protective equipment so rudimentary that Symington was hospitalized due to an accidental poisoning in 1979.

By drying the parathion into a powder, the Rhodesians eliminated any telltale chemical odor. It was then applied, sometimes with a mix of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) to accelerate dermal absorption, to a number of clothes, including underwear, t-shirts, socks, and jackets. The blue denim trousers and khaki felt hats that guerrillas favored were also often deliberately impregnated with parathion in this manner. However, the Rhodesians preferred underwear and t-shirts, as they had the fastest rate of parathion absorption into the body. By the end of the war, over 2500 articles of clothing were poisoned in this manner. Reports of organophosphate poisonings across Rhodesia skyrocketed during this time.

Dissemination

The true effectiveness of the CBW program was in its dissemination. “Contact men” were especially effective at injecting poisoned food and clothing into the guerrillas’ supply system. Oftentimes, these contact men would be contacted by guerrilla groups with lists of requested supplies; these lists would then be forwarded to the CBW team. The CBW team would produce the poisoned supplies, which were then sent along to the contact men and from there to the guerrilla group in question. Contact men would receive Rh $1,000 for each confirmed guerrilla death. One November 1977 report claims that 79 guerrillas had been killed from contaminated supplies in a single month.

One of the most infamous collaborators with the Rhodesian CBW effort was Reverend Arthur Kanodareka. Kanodareka specialized in targeting guerrilla recruits, often supplying them “…with poisoned uniforms. The men would be sent on their way to the guerrilla training camps, but before reaching their destination, would die a slow death in the African bush. Many hundreds of recruits became victims of this operation.”

Further dissemination was conducted through local stores. Rhodesian operatives would supply local storeowners with contaminated food, medicine, and poisoned clothing. The storeowners were sometimes willing collaborators; sometimes, stores in areas with a high concentration of guerrillas were unknowingly seeded with contaminated supplies. Civilian casualties did not appear to be a concern. In his autobiography, Major John Cronin of the Selous Scouts recalls questioning a Special Branch officer, “‘But how can you be sure that the [guerrillas] and not some other African civilians will get these things?’ He smiled indulgently. ‘You’re new here, aren’t you?’

As a final means of disseminating poisoned supplies within the guerrilla logistical network, identified guerrilla caches would often be cunningly poisoned with contaminated material.

Military Effectiveness

Despite the hundreds of civilian deaths, the Rhodesians deemed the CBW program a success, estimating a guerrilla death toll in the thousands. Some estimates claim that up to 15% of guerrilla casualties during the war were due to the CBW program, a significantly higher percentage than even the First World War. Along with this, former guerrillas admitted that the CBW program caused a “significant… disruption in civilian/guerrilla relations in the affected areas, causing increased accusations of collaboration and witchcraft.”

Just as alarmingly, the Rhodesian CBW program, despite multiple warning signs in the medical literature and public accusations from guerrilla groups, remained completely unknown to Western intelligence agencies until years later.

Insurgency Adaptation

However, despite initial military successes, the CBW program was not enough for Rhodesian forces to achieve a COIN victory. The Rhodesian regime remained unable to achieve its political objectives, and guerrilla forces successfully won over more and more of the rural population’s support as the war dragged on. Any disruption the poisonings may have had between guerrilla and civilian relations may have been significant, but more ultimately “not decisive.”

On a tactical level, guerilla forces quickly adapted to the CBW threat. Teenager auxiliaries were used to test suspicious sources of food, and a culture of suspicion against unknown substances took root – when Depo-Provera was introduced to Rhodesia in the 1970s, it was widely believed to be a form of chemical sterilization against the African populace, so much that it would be banned by Zimbabwe in 1981. Guerillas carefully policed any new sources of clothing as well. New recruits arriving at training camps had to strip and then hop for half a kilometer to boost their metabolism and ensure they had not been inadvertently wearing any poisoned clothing.

The Rhodesian CBW program also offered a propaganda opportunity to the guerrillas. Using sources such as the Zambian Daily News, the ZANU-controlled Zimbabwe News, and other books and newsletters, guerrilla forces were also quick to publicize reported accounts of the Rhodesian government’s deliberate poisoning of water sources and foodstuffs. The Rhodesian regime, already suffering from its utter disinterest in winning local support, only bled further legitimacy because of this.

Conclusion

Despite its crude and rudimentary nature, the Rhodesian CBW program initially provided the regime with a number of novel COIN tactics. However, hamstrung by the Rhodesian government’s political inflexibility and by guerrilla adaptation, the CBW program ultimately failed to become a decisive factor in the Rhodesian Bush War.

The Rhodesian case offers critical lessons for contemporary counterinsurgency operations and international security frameworks. The program’s tactical achievements masked its strategic bankruptcy—a pattern that remains relevant as modern conflicts increasingly blur the lines between conventional and unconventional warfare. While tactically innovative, the Rhodesian CBW program was ultimately defeated through a number of factors, including rapid guerrilla adaptation, further loss of regime legitimacy, and its failure to compensate for a fundamental political failure in winning popular support.

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South Africa In World War 3

BY VINESH SELVAN

IN RECENT years, we have seen periodic global conflicts, with the potential of triggering the start of World War 3. One of the most notable conflicts was between Russia and Ukraine, which started in 2014 and escalated in 2022. Russia made military advances to achieve political gain, while Ukraine, with a smaller military force, conjured international support to counter the invasion.

The West offered support in the form of supply of arms and munitions, intelligence and military training to civilian volunteers through private military contractors. During the escalation of the war in 2022, a few South Africans of Indian origin were studying in Ukraine fell part of the fleeing masses into neighbouring Poland.

Another notable and more recent conflict, was between India and Pakistan. A conflict where each country, became a proxy to test global player’s military hardware head-to-head. While both countries have been involved in a long-standing conflict, since the India-Pakistan partition. The recent conflict has been a focus on the use of drones and other airborne attacks, to get the other to expose their air defence systems along its border region. In the event of a full-scale war, knowing the enemy’s air defence systems locations would place one at an advantage in terms of air superiority.

Needless to say, the propaganda machines also kicked into gear, driving patriotism towards each nationality, with the incitement of the layman into much of the social media propaganda war. Sadly, extremist from both sides have settled in South Africa, sowing division within our local Indian community, with the hope of driving their foreign-based political agenda. This conflict was quickly defused with the intervention of the United States for a ceasefire agreement.

The current conflict between Iran and Israel has placed global powers on the edge as these 2 nuclear-armed countries attack each other with ballistic missiles. With each regional conflict, we see global players changing sides and forming new coalitions, with each conflict depending on the country’s political narrative.

One needs to examine the driving forces behind these conflicts, identify the global architects, and understand their economic and political agendas. Most global political leaders get elected into office, backed by big businesses to advance their economic interests; this is visible from a historical and present-day perspective. Since the early 16th century, the British had aspirations to expand their empire for economic gain and, as a result, had a huge part to play in the India-Pakistan division and the creation of Israel that led to the Palestine and Israel conflict. The British were responsible for creating a homeland for European Jews in Palestine at the end of World War 1.

The Jews were persecuted in Europe, and without the consultation of the Palestinian people, the British created a homeland and mass-migrated them into Palestine. Note: Palestine prior to World War 1 consisted of Jews, Christians and Muslims who cohabited in relative harmony in the region before Britain's interference. The British have also failed to address the global displacement of Indians under indentured labour. Today Indians in all post-colonial countries struggle as minorities, as they are seen as soft targets and become victims of race-based riots. Indo-Guyanese experienced rioting in 1962; Indo-Fijians suffered violence and unrest as large numbers of Indians were attacked in 1987; and the South Africans of Indian origin suffered violence in 3 riots, namely in the 1949 and 1985 Inanda riots and the latest in the KZN 2021 riots.

The British have failed to take responsibility for Indians who were displaced by indentured labour by making provision for a homeland to accommodate these marginalised and discriminated communities. An application was submitted to the British High Commission on the 20th of February 2023 by a small group of activists to address the matter, but they opted to ignore the application. The hope is to move these small displaced communities into a single region, where they will become a sizable community within the nation’s population and no longer become targets of unrest and violence.

Today much of the conflict in and around the Middle East region is driven by access to oil reserves, where the incitement of war destroys democracies to replace governments with puppets to gain access to natural resources. The greatest curse to the Middle East is its oil reserves. Warfare has changed drastically since the last world war. With advanced technology weapons systems, precise target strikes, and the availability of large defence budgets, global leaders exercise their might on smaller divided nations with rich natural resources.

A World War 3 will see a significantly higher displacement of people globally and mass destruction with major cities being destroyed.Another threat factor to consider is operatives who opted to settle in foreign countries as migrants during peace times. Most countries have taken advantage of this opportunity to station covert operatives to gather intelligence and establish structures within potential enemy countries. This network will destabilise and carry out acts of sabotage during an armed conflict. With the number of countries possessing nuclear weapons, a nuclear war will have a detrimental effect ecologically on the earth and on humanity as compared to previous world wars.

After a nuclear explosive has been detonated, the presence of radioactivity remains in the region for decades, impacting humans, animals and the environment, as seen with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Chernobyl disaster in Russia that took place about 40 years ago still poses a radioactive threat to the environment. While South Africa is neither a nuclear threat nor has distinctive long-term enemies with nuclear arms, it’s unlikely for the country to suffer a nuclear attack or be a region for World War conflict, but battlefields changes as wars progresses. What poses a concern if a nuclear war breaks out, is a possible influx of refugees into South Africa escaping disaster from their conflict regions.

Our challenge would be dealing with victims exposed to radioactive material wanting to enter the country. We can expect various documented and undocumented means by air, sea or by simple border crossings to reach our shores. These refugees are most likely to head towards major cosmopolitan areas, thereby increasing the probability of contaminating large masses of the local populace.

South Africa will have to have a military contingency plan in place under the South African National Defence Force and exercise a high alert in terms of border control at the outbreak of the war. Establishing refugee camps in remote parts of the country is necessary to quarantine and prevent further contamination. The big question is? Does South Africa have the defence budget or the intellectual capabilities to counter such a threat?

Vinesh Selvan is a military historian and a former Soldier of the South African National Defence Force. He also served as business development executive within the South African Arms Industry. Selvan is currently documenting the military participation of Indians in South Africa spanning from the Anglo-Boer War to present day.

Far-Left South African Politician Says The UK Denied Him A Visa To Speak At Cambridge University

FILE - Economic Freedom Fighters party leader Julius Malema raises his fist at an election rally in Polokwane, South Africa, on May 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File) (Thenba Hadebe/AP)

BY GERALD IMRAY

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (AP) — A far-left South African politician renowned for his anti-West rhetoric accused U.K. authorities Wednesday of denying him a visa to speak at an event at Cambridge University for political reasons.

Julius Malema, the leader of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters opposition party , said the decision was effectively a ban on him addressing students and “an attempt to silence a dissenting political perspective.”

He posted on social media platform X that he had been assured that his visa was being processed but had received “a regret letter” informing him his application was not successful while he was at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport waiting for his flight to London.

Malema, who also uses the title “Commander in Chief” of his party, has previously demanded the U.K. pay reparations and apologize to African nations for colonialism. The lawmaker and his party have also accused the British monarchy of playing a leading role in the slave trade and colonial abuses.

The BBC reported that it had seen a leaked letter to Malema’s EFF party from the British high commissioner to South Africa personally apologizing that the U.K. Home Office wasn’t able to process Malema’s visa in time and saying it was due to procedural issues. The letter from High Commissioner Antony Phillipson cited “the unfortunate timing” of recent British national holidays, according to the BBC.

The Home Office didn’t comment.

Malema was due to speak at an Africa-themed event at Cambridge University on Saturday, his party said.

The firebrand politician, who was expelled from South Africa’s then-ruling African National Congress party in 2012, has also taken anti-Western positions recently on the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict. He has voiced support for Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and has accused Western nations of supporting and financing what he calls Israel’s “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza.

In October, the U.K. denied ex-South African lawmaker Mandla Mandela , the grandson of Nelson Mandela, a visa to travel and speak at pro-Palestinian events in several British cities. Mandla Mandela said he was informed by the Home Office that his visa had been rejected because of his support for the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which the U.K. considers a terrorist organization, and his presence was “not conducive to the public good.”

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

Haunted By Apartheid, An American Confronts The Limits Of Revenge

BY VIOLET KUPERSMITH

Each of Lauren Francis-Sharma’s three novels begins with a calculated killing. In her 2014 debut, “’Til the Well Runs Dry,” a desperate Trinidadian girl catches and slaughters a wild opossum to feed her family. In 2020’s “Book of the Little Axe,” a band of Crow boys stalks and takes down a bighorn sheep on a hunting expedition. Now, in “Casualties of Truth,” Francis-Sharma’s tense, timely new novel about the monstrous legacy of South African apartheid, the killing in the opening pages is of a man. Like the opossum and the sheep, he is also being hunted for sustenance, albeit sustenance of a different, darker, figurative kind.

The deceased is a white policeman in 1996 Johannesburg. At the book’s outset, he is lamenting Mandela’s presidency and his own perceived loss of power under it, limping from injuries sustained during an unexplained altercation with an American girl. In the early hours of the following morning, his throat is slit by an unseen assailant. We later learn that the policeman’s execution was an act of revenge: an attempt to claim justice for other stolen lives, for stolen dignity, for the stolen agency of an entire traumatized country. But at what cost? This is the uneasy question at the center of the story: Can we ever really atone for violence without more violence? And can we survive what has been done to us without sacrificing our own humanity in the process?

From 1996 Johannesburg, the novel flashes forward to 2018 Washington, D.C., where Prudence Wright and her husband, Davis, are by all outward appearances very happily married. The Wrights are wealthy, successful and attractive, and they own an enormous home in Bethesda, Md. While Prudence contends that they are not a real Black Washington power couple, “at least not in the way Black Washingtonians knew Black Washington power couples to be,” she and Davis still turn heads when they enter a room together.

The Prudence we meet in 2018 is guarded, carefully composed, the kind of woman who has sharpened herself to a point out of self-preservation. After a tragedy-scarred childhood in Baltimore, she went on to earn three Ivy League degrees and a partnership at McKinsey before stepping back from her career to stay at home with her autistic son.

On the stormy D.C. night when Prudence’s story begins, she is accompanying Davis to meet his new colleague at what she assumes will be a tedious work dinner. But when the colleague arrives at the restaurant he turns out to be Matshediso, a South African man whose life collided with Prudence’s two decades earlier, when she spent a few months in Johannesburg for a law school internship. Matshediso knows secrets from Prudence’s past that still haunt her, and it is no coincidence that he has suddenly re-materialized as an I.T. guy at her husband’s law firm.

“Casualties of Truth” is a brutal history lesson in the guise of a thriller. The novel is taut and deftly plotted, volleying between 1996 and 2018 as it exposes Matshediso’s shared history with Prudence — and with the dead policeman — as well as what Matshediso wants with Prudence now.

There is a nightmarish quality to the story; moments of strange, almost surreal terror arise as abruptly as they vanish — a threatening man leaps onto the hood of a car without warning, a child goes missing in a restaurant, an idyllic morning at a farmers’ market devolves into trippy anguish. The potential for violence lurks beneath even the most innocuous surfaces, keeping Prudence (and the reader) perpetually on edge.

But the novel’s deeper aim is to shine a light on the human rights violations committed during the apartheid era. Amid the suspense, Francis-Sharma brings us into the courtrooms of South Africa’s 1996 Truth and Reconciliation hearings: “a system where citizens could lodge complaints and perpetrators could request pardons for the horrible things they had done,” and the new government’s way of “forging the most progressive democracy ever envisioned while also making amends for the past horrors for which they were largely not responsible.”

Prudence attends some of the proceedings as part of her internship, and the testimonies she witnesses are the most gripping passages in the entire book — bald descriptions of atrocities, made all the more appalling by the mundane delivery of the amnesty-seeking men who committed them.

“Casualties of Truth” is a tale of dual reckonings, of a woman and a country both forced to face their histories and the harrowing violence that has shaped them. Despite the pain chronicled in its pages, and despite having no easy answer to the complex question of what real accountability looks like, the book does contain a shred of hope: Though the truth alone is not justice, there is still freedom in it.

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