In the Shadow of the Dragon's Back

In the Shadow of the Dragon's Back
Author: Rachel Odhner Longstaff
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2017-08-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1683150120

The book is the story of a young American girl living in South Africa during the early years of Apartheid (1948-1960). One of six children of a Swedenborgian minister who was sent to South Africa to establish a theological school for Africans, the author reaches back into this unique time and place in an effort to rediscover the culture that influenced her own adult attitudes. Rather than following a strictly chronological format, the story is laid out in a series of verbal snapshots, supported by photographs. Family life, experienced through the eyes of a child living in a complex environment, contrasts with the lives of those who were impacted by the institutionalized racism of apartheid. Examples of the Acts of Apartheid at the end of each chapter include news articles, interviews, and commentary. Deep childhood fears of some unnamed threat are represented by home invasions, wildfires, and the cry of a hyena in the mountains. The mountains are dangerous, they present a great barrier, but they can be conquered. After returning permanently to America as a teenager¿through a confusing and sometimes painful process of discussion and observation¿the author uncovers those artifacts of the past that inform her place in the world today.

Falls the Shadow

Falls the Shadow
Author: Kristina A. Bentley
Publisher: Juta and Company Ltd
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 1919895906

"South Africa supposedly has one of the best Constitutions in the world, one which is intended to control and constrain the exercise of power by the state so that it does not threaten the liberty and security of citizens. But, in reality, does the Constitution contribute more to the security of some groups than others? Does it help to ensure certain types of security but not others? And does it have greater impact on some institutions than others? Falls the Shadow: Between the Promise and Reality of the South African Constitution is based on the assumption that the Constitution has a significant impact on the security of South African citizens and communities but that this impact is differential. The chapters in the book explore what kind of differentialimpact the Constitution has, explain what accounts for the differences, examine the consequences of the different impact and consider whether there are any general observations and hypotheses that emerge from comparative perspectives."--Publisher's website.

In the Shadow of a Conflict

In the Shadow of a Conflict
Author: Bill Derman
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2013-05-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1779222335

Zimbabwe has cast a powerful regional and international shadow since it became independent in 1980 and more recently, through the crises of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The 2000s were a decade of combined political, economic and social crises in Zimbabwe following what had been a relatively successful twenty years of independence since 1980. The scale, depth and severity of the crises evolving since 2000 have been as dramatic as they have been unexpected. While there has been substantial coverage of the internal consequences of Zimbabwes crises less attention has been paid to its regional and cross-border consequences. In explaining the ongoing processes stemming from the crises, this book looks at three neighboring countries Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia to depict how, over time, they have experienced and interpreted events in Zimbabwe, how they have dealt with Zimbabweans entering their territories, and how they have or have not formulated policies and developed practices to cope with the arrival of new and mainly undocumented Zimbabwean immigrants.

In the Shadow of Sharpeville

In the Shadow of Sharpeville
Author: Peter Parker
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 1998-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780814766590

A history of the men who were sentenced to hang in South Africa following the death of a deputy-mayor in Sharpeville in 1984. The authors focus on the trial, sentencing, and subsequent international campaign that eventually led to their release after a stay of execution was ordered only 18 hours before the death sentence was to be carried out. Their exploration of the events also leads the authors into discussions of the way the criminal justice system in apartheid South Africa was biased against blacks. The source material for the book included countless interviews and letters written from Death Row. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in South Africa

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in South Africa
Author: Daniel L. Douek
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 530
Release: 2020
Genre: Counterinsurgency
ISBN: 1849048800

South Africa's transition to democracy took place against a backdrop of shadow war between the apartheid regime's counterinsurgency forces and the African National Congress' armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). This book analyses in unprecedented detail the hidden history of MK's struggle and its contribution to South Africa's liberation, while exposing new dimensions of clandestine apartheid-era violence. Drawing on interviews with former MK guerrillas, Daniel Douek traces the evolution of MK's operations across southern Africa from the 1960s, culminating in the 1990-4 negotiations between the ANC and the white supremacist regime. As political violence escalated, the battle waged in the shadows became nothing less than a struggle to shape South Africa's future. Counterinsurgency forces recruited spies, deployed death squads, engaged in psychological warfare, and targeted ANC leaders, including MK chief Chris Hani. Even once ANC elites had come to power, apartheid counterinsurgency operations continued to undermine South Africa's new democracy by marginalizing MK guerrillas within the 'new' security forces, leaving legacies of violence and instability still felt today.

Shadow of Liberation

Shadow of Liberation
Author: Vishnu Padayachee
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2019-10-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1776143973

Shadow of Liberation explores the intricate twists, turns, contestations and compromises of ANC economic and social policymaking with a focus on the transition era of the 1990’s and the early years of democracy With the damning revelations by the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture on the massive corruption of the South African body politic, the timing of this book could not be more relevant. South Africans need to confront the economic and social policy choices that the liberation movement made and to see how these decisions may have facilitated the conditions for corruption to emerge and flourish. Answers are needed. Padayachee and van Niekerk focus their attention on the primary question of how and why the ANC, given its historical anti-inequality, re-distributive stance, come in the 1990s, to such a dramatic turn around and move towards an essentially market-dominated approach. Were they pushed or did they go willingly? What role if any did Western governments and international financial institutions play? And what of the role of the late apartheid state and South African business? Did leaders and comrades ‘sell out’ the ANC’s emancipatory policy vision? Shadow of Liberation tries to provide answers to these questions drawing on the best available primary archival evidence as well as extensive interviews with key protagonists across the political, non-government and business spectrum. The authors argue that the ANC’s emancipatory policy agenda was broadly to establish a social democratic welfare state upholding rights of social citizenship. However its economic policy framework to realise this emancipatory mission was either non-existent or egregiously misguided.

The Shadow

The Shadow
Author:
Publisher: New Africa Books
Total Pages: 30
Release: 2009-03-19
Genre: Children's literature, African
ISBN: 9781869281106

A boy dreams of getting football boots but will not get any if he doesn't clear the rubbish from his father's yard.

The Shadow of the Sun

The Shadow of the Sun
Author: Ryszard Kapuscinski
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2011-05-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0307367096

A moving portrait of Africa from Poland's most celebrated foreign correspondent - a masterpiece from a modern master. Famous for being in the wrong places at just the right times, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa in 1957, at the beginning of the end of colonial rule - the "sometimes dramatic and painful, sometimes enjoyable and jubilant" rebirth of a continent. The Shadow of the Sun sums up the author's experiences ("the record of a 40-year marriage") in this place that became the central obsession of his remarkable career. From the hopeful years of independence through the bloody disintegration of places like Nigeria, Rwanda and Angola, Kapuscinski recounts great social and political changes through the prism of the ordinary African. He examines the rough-and-ready physical world and identifies the true geography of Africa: a little-understood spiritual universe, an African way of being. He looks also at Africa in the wake of two epoch-making changes: the arrival of AIDS and the definitive departure of the white man. Kapuscinski's rare humanity invests his subjects with a grandeur and a dignity unmatched by any other writer on the Third World, and his unique ability to discern the universal in the particular has never been more powerfully displayed than in this work.

We Are Not Such Things

We Are Not Such Things
Author: Justine van der Leun
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2016-06-28
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0812994515

Justine van der Leun reopens the murder of a young American woman in South Africa, an iconic case that calls into question our understanding of truth and reconciliation, loyalty, justice, race, and class—a gripping investigation in the vein of the podcast Serial “Timely . . . gripping, explosive . . . the kind of obsessive forensic investigation—of the clues, and into the soul of society—that is the legacy of highbrow sleuths from Truman Capote to Janet Malcolm.”—The New York Times Book Review The story of Amy Biehl is well known in South Africa: The twenty-six-year-old white American Fulbright scholar was brutally murdered on August 25, 1993, during the final, fiery days of apartheid by a mob of young black men in a township outside Cape Town. Her parents’ forgiveness of two of her killers became a symbol of the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa. Justine van der Leun decided to introduce the story to an American audience. But as she delved into the case, the prevailing narrative started to unravel. Why didn’t the eyewitness reports agree on who killed Amy Biehl? Were the men convicted of the murder actually responsible for her death? And then van der Leun stumbled upon another brutal crime committed on the same day, in the very same area. The true story of Amy Biehl’s death, it turned out, was not only a story of forgiveness but a reflection of the complicated history of a troubled country. We Are Not Such Things is the result of van der Leun’s four-year investigation into this strange, knotted tale of injustice, violence, and compassion. The bizarre twists and turns of this case and its aftermath—and the story that emerges of what happened on that fateful day in 1993 and in the decades that followed—come together in an unsparing account of life in South Africa today. Van der Leun immerses herself in the lives of her subjects and paints a stark, moving portrait of a township and its residents. We come to understand that the issues at the heart of her investigation are universal in scope and powerful in resonance. We Are Not Such Things reveals how reconciliation is impossible without an acknowledgment of the past, a lesson as relevant to America today as to a South Africa still struggling with the long shadow of its history. “A masterpiece of reported nonfiction . . . Justine van der Leun’s account of a South African murder is destined to be a classic.”—Newsday

In The Shadow of Mandela

In The Shadow of Mandela
Author: Alexander Johnston
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2020
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1784539538

This outstanding and original work goes to the heart of South Africa's political problems - doubts as to the sustainability of the post-apartheid settlement, beset with divisions in the ruling ANC, factionalism, corruption and the widening of fault-lines in state and society. The 'leadership issue' has become key and this will be the first specific examination of leadership in the light of Mandela's legacy and its effect on his successor as potential and actual leaders - all in 'the shadow of Mandela' as the architect of the transition from apartheid to democracy, and with overarching moral authority and international reputation. Alexander Johnston shows how his successors are judged against Mandela's achievements, including the potentially impressive 'lost' leaders and concentrating on his immediate successors, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. This is an objective and critical work by an insider who acknowledges the achievement of South African leadership but is acutely aware of the doubts as to the sustainability of South Africa's hard won democratic settlement. An essential read for all readers interested in leadership and in the traumatic history and future of Africa's leading state, as the continent rises to global importance."--Bloomsbury Publishing