Opening Men's Eyes, by Michael Cardo

Opening Men's Eyes, by Michael Cardo. ISBN 9781868423927 / ISBN 978-1-86842-392-7

Opening Men's Eyes, by Michael Cardo. ISBN 9781868423927 / ISBN 978-1-86842-392-7

Opening Men's Eyes, by Michael Cardo tells the story of how Peter Brown, a privileged youngster growing up in the all-white world of conservative Natal settler society, had the scales of racial prejudice removed from his eyes, and how he set about opening the eyes of his compatriots.

Michael Cardo  

Three weeks after his release from jail in 1990, Nelson Mandela travelled to the strife-torn province of Natal, where members of the Inkatha movement and supporters of the United Democratic Front (UDF) were engaged in a bloody civil war. Addressing a crowd of over 100 000 people, Mandela relayed his powerful message: 'Take your guns, your knives, and your pangas, and throw them into the sea. Close down the death factories. End this war now!' Throughout his speech, Mandela returned to the theme that was later to become the leitmotif of his presidency: unity in diversity. Speaking in Zulu, he said that no one could boast more proudly of having 'ploughed a significant field in the struggle against apartheid' than the people of Natal. And that struggle had won the participation of 'every language and colour, every stripe and hue'. Along with Zulu elders who had provided leadership to the African National Congress (ANC), like John Langalibalele Dube, Pixley ka Isaka Seme and Albert Luthuli; together with members of the first black political organisation in Africa, the Natal Indian Congress (NIC); and with the workers from Durban who flexed their industrial muscle during the strikes of the 1970s, 'Whites, too, [had] made a contribution to the struggle in Natal': It began with the lonely voices of Bishop Colenso and his daughters who denounced imperialist injustices against the Zulu people and who campaigned vigorously for the freedom of their leaders. The Natal Liberal Party waged steadfast campaigns against removals, and its work has been continued into the present by people like Peter Brown. Mandela saluted their 'proud and courageous history'. Four years later, as President, Mandela again paid tribute to Peter Brown when he invited him to attend a 'luncheon in honour of the veterans of our struggle for freedom' at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Who was Peter Brown, to whose role Mandela made special reference in one of his first, and most important, speeches as a free man? And why, over the course of the following decade, until his death in 2004, was Brown's contribution allowed to fade from the nation's collective historical consciousness? Reflecting on a visit to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg in 2003, the historian and journalist, RW Johnson, noted that there was 'one old election poster of [Helen] Suzman's about a foot from the floor but no pictures of Alan Paton, Peter Brown or any other white liberals who suffered and fought against apartheid'. The only white faces shown as part of the struggle, he observed, were communists. Was this a case of white liberals being deliberately airbrushed from the historical canvas? To be sure, in death, Brown was paid handsome tribute by his friends and former colleagues in the Liberal Party (LP), which he helped to form in 1953 and which he led between 1958 and 1964. Memorial services were held in South Africa and England, and obituarists at home and abroad sketched his life and work. In life, too, Brown did not go altogether unrecognised: in 1997, the University of Natal conferred on him an honorary doctorate, and in 2000, the Pietermaritzburg-Msunduzi local council awarded him a civic certificate of commendation for 'his dedication to justice, the selfless work he [had] done over decades in a variety of different fields, and the quiet influence that he [had] exerted on a large number of people'. [...]

This is an excerpt from the book: Opening Men's Eyes, by Michael Cardo.

Title: Opening Men's Eyes
Author: Michael Cardo
Type: Biography
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Johannesburg, South Africa 2010
ISBN 9781868423927 / ISBN 978-1-86842-392-7
Softcover, 16x23 cm, 368 pages, b/w photos

Cardo, Michael im Namibiana-Buchangebot

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