George Bizos: Law, Justice & Morality in South Africa: The Past & the Present

(Talk given to the School of Practical Philosophy During Plato Week - 22 April 2013)

Professors, academics, philosophers, students and interested guests:

1.  It is my honour to have been asked to speak at Plato Week in South Africa by the School of Practical Philosophy. I would like to thank Stephen Meintjies and David Horan for making this week possible. For those of you who may not know me, I am of Greek origin and accordingly it has brought me endless joy to conduct some of my research in preparation for this speech.

Death of an Idealist: In search of Neil Aggett

Death of an Idealist: In search of Neil Aggett is the story behind the only white detainee to die in custody of apartheid’s security police. A medical doctor who worked most of the week as an unpaid trade union organiser, Neil Aggett’s stark non-materialism, shared by his partner Dr Elizabeth Floyd, aroused police suspicions. When their names appeared on a list of ‘Close Comrades’ prepared for ANC leaders in exile they were among a swathe of union activists detained in 1981.

Beverley Naidoo traces the transformation of the youngest child born to settler parents in Kenya at the height of Mau Mau resistance to colonial rule. The book explores the metamorphosis of a high-achieving, sports-loving white schoolboy into the 28-year-old whose coffin was followed by thousands of workers through Johannesburg to his grave. The extraordinary funeral and the preceding national work stoppage were a watershed for trade union unity.