Bram Fischer

Download or read book The Bram Fischer Waltz written by Harry Kalmer and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although widely known as the Afrikaner communist who saved Nelson Mandela from the gallows, very little is known about Bram Fischer the man. Fischer was a respected Senior Advocate at the Johannesburg Bar who chose to side with the oppressed and went underground to join the armed struggle. He was arrested on 5 November 1965 after almost ten months on the run. ‘I owed it to the political prisoners, to the banished, to the silenced and to those under house arrest not to remain a spectator, but to act.’ These words spoken by Bram Fischer in his statement from the dock during his treason trial were followed by a life sentence. Scion of a proudly Afrikaner family that included a prime minister and a judge president of the Orange Free State, he would seem to be an unlikely hero of the liberation movement. Uncompromising in his political beliefs and driven by an unshakeable integrity and a commitment to the dream of a non-racial democracy, Fischer was also humorous, fun-loving and a family man, devoted to his wife and children. The many facets of this remarkable man are reflected in The Bram Fischer Waltz, Harry Kalmer’s lyrical tribute. A brief and intense work, with the protagonist as narrator, this one person play takes the audience through a roller coaster of emotions as it tells Fischer’s story. The play won The Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award when it premiered in English at 2013 the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and was awarded the Adelaide Tambo Award for Human Rights in the Arts in 2014. The text is supplemented by a foreword by George Bizos and an introduction by the playwright, reflecting on the path that led him to write the play, and an afterword by Yvonne Malan, entitled ‘The Power of Moral Courage’.

Download or read book Bram Fischer written by Chris Van Wyk and published by Awareness Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Bram Fischer written by Stephen Clingman and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A passionate study of an Afrikaner dissident who was one of the founding fathers of the liberation struggle in South Africa and whose power to provoke an intense response is as apparent today as in the past.

Download or read book Bram Fischer written by and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Everyday Communists in South Africa’s Liberation Struggle written by Alan Kirkaldy and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-10 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the role of social movements in the Southern African liberation struggle, through the lens of two ‘everyday communists’. Focusing on the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), the author explores the lives of Ivan and Lesley Schermbrucker, whose contribution to the party was more clandestine than that of leaders such as Bram Fischer and Joe Slovo. They represent how ‘ordinary’ people could play significant roles based on stances more rooted in common decency and morality than in Marxist theory. The book also sheds light on the interplay between transnational and national tendencies during the liberation movement, particularly between the 1940s and the 1960s. The Schermbruckers changed their views in response to the shifting national and international political landscape, the rise of Stalinism, and the flight of South African activists into exile from the 1960s. Both fluent in African languages, they were able to create relationships of trust with African members of the CPSA. Examining tensions and conflicts during the liberation struggle, this book provides fresh insights into ‘underground’ activism.

Download or read book The Mandela Brief written by Thomas Grant and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2022-07-21 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A forensic, riveting account of a wondrous and principled advocate' Philippe Sands 'Well-written, deeply researched and wholly gripping' The Spectator 'Meticulously researched' The Times 'Kentridge is one of many lawyers to whom I will forever be in debt, and whose everyday fights against injustice should inspire us all' David Lammy Sydney Kentridge carved out a reputation as South Africa's most prominent anti-apartheid advocate - his story is entwined with the country's emergence from racial injustice and oppression. He is the only advocate to have acted for three winners of the Nobel Peace Prize - Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Chief Albert Lutuli. Already world-famous for his landmark cases including the Treason Trial of Nelson Mandela and the other leading members of the ANC, the inquiry into the Sharpeville massacre, and the inquest into the death of Steve Biko, he then became England's premier advocate. Through the great set-pieces of the legal struggle against apartheid - cases which made the headlines not just in South Africa, but across the world - this biography is a portrait of enduring moral stature.

Download or read book The Courtroom as a Space of Resistance written by Awol Allo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty years before his death in 2013, Nelson Mandela stood before Justice de Wet in Pretoria's Palace of Justice and delivered one of the most spectacular and liberating statements ever made from a dock. In what came to be regarded as "the trial that changed South Africa", Mandela summed up the spirit of the liberation struggle and the moral basis for the post-Apartheid society. In this blistering critique of Apartheid and its perversion of justice, Mandela transforms the law into a sword and shield. He invokes it while undermining it, uses it while subverting it, and claims it while defeating it. Wise and strategic, Mandela skilfully reimagines the courtroom as a site of visibility and hearing, opening up a political space within the legal. This volume returns to the Rivonia courtroom to engage with Mandela's masterful performance of resistance and the dramatic core of that transformative event. Cutting across a wide-range of critical theories and discourses, contributors reflect on the personal, spatial, temporal, performative, and literary dimensions of that constitutive event. By redefining the spaces, institutions and discourses of law, contributors present a fresh perspective that re-sets the margins of what can be thought and said in the courtroom.