GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
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Know thy enemy
Peter Hain knew well apartheid's vulnerabilities and used this knowledge to seriously undermine the regime’s international reputation
Hitting where it hurts
[Wikipedia]
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
A Pretoria Boy - The Story of South Africa’s “Public Enemy Number One”
by Peter Hain
Icon Books £20
MY relationship with Peter began in our shared struggle against apartheid. It continues in Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA), the successor to the Anti-Apartheid Movement of which he is Honorary Vice-President.
Hain’s latest biography begins with his childhood introduction to the methods of the Apartheid Special Branch as they pursued his activist parents. He describes his emotions at their imprisonment; among the first detainees without trial under the 12-day detention laws.
Peter’s parents were members of the Liberal Party and a friend, John Harris, joined the “Liberal” Armed Resistance Movement which bombed Johannesburg Central Station. Harris was sentenced to death and shortly after his execution in 1964 the Hains left South Africa for the UK.
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