'Choosing to be Free: The Life Story of Rick Turner' - A review

Keniston, B., 2013, Choosing to be Free: The Life Story of Rick Turner. Johannesburg. Jacana (276pp.; R220)

Reviewed by Richard Pithouse, Interface

Rick Turner, a philosopher and a committed and effective radical, was assassinated in Durban, South Africa, in January 1978. Turner had, along with Steve Biko who was murdered in police custody in September 1977, been a leading figure in what came to be known as ‘the Durban Moment’. The phrase, which was first coined by Tony Morphet (1990), refers to a period in the early 1970s in which Durban became a site of significant political innovation in the struggle against apartheid, innovation that was conceptualised and organised outside of the strictures of the exiled African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party (SACP). Morphet argued that ‘the Durban Moment’ enabled a “structural shift in the received intellectual patterns of the social world” (1990, pp. 92-3). It also had enduring political consequences of real significance (Macqueen, 2014; Webster, 1993).

Eddie Webster reviews 'Billy Keniston (2013) Choosing to be Free: the life story of Rick Turner'

Eddie Webster reviews 'Billy Keniston (2013) Choosing to be Free: the life story of Rick Turner' by TigersEye99

Students, Apartheid and the Ecumenical Movement in South Africa, 1960–1975

Students, Apartheid and the Ecumenical Movement in South Africa, 1960–1975 by TigersEye99

The Durban strikes of 1973: Political identities and themanagement of protest

The Durban strikes of 1973: Political identities and the management of protest by TigersEye99

The Durban Moment Forty Years On

by Richard Pithouse

January marked the fortieth anniversary of the 1973 Durban strikes. In commemoration of the strikes, and their wider political context, Omar Badsha's South African History Online project and Rhodes University are hosting a conference on the Durban Moment from the 21^st to the 23^rd of February.

Phyllis Naidoo: 5 January 1928 - 13 February 2013

Phyllis Naidoo

SA History Online

Phyllis Naidoo was born in Estcourt, Natal (now kwaZulu-Natal) on the 5th of January 1928. She was the daughter of Simon David, a teacher and principal. His occupation prevented him from being politically active but he was a ‘Methodist agnostic.’ As a result there were many interesting debates in the house and Phyllis developed a questioning attitude. From her early years her experiences did not allow her to simply take things for granted. When she was ten years old, her father took her to an Institute of Race Relations Conference in Pietermaritzburg at which she was to serve tea. At the meeting someone asked her to go and call the boy. She went outside and when she asked for the boy a very dignified, traditional Zulu woman confronted her. “The boy you want is my husband.” The woman’s regal presence made Phyllis realise that she had given tremendous offence and she was mortified. She was so upset that she sobbed hysterically for a long while afterwards. This incident awakened her, more than any event or speech at the meeting, to the evils of racism.

Conference Programme: The Durban Moment - Revisiting Politics, Labour, Youth and Resistance in the 1970s

Rhodes University  21–23 February 2013

Thursday 21st February	Venue: Centre for Continuing Education
First Session
9.00 – 9.30	Registration
9.30 – 9.45	Welcome by Professor Saleem Badat, Vice Rector
9.45 – 10.00	Welcome and announcements by Omar Badsha
10.00 – 11.30	The Meaning of the Durban Moment Now
	Richard Pithouse: The Meaning of the Durban Moment Now
11.30 – 11.45	Tea

Workers' Power Thrives On Unity

Steven Friedman

Steven Friedman, RU Perspectives

The Durban strikes of 1973 empowered workers and helped destroy apartheid.

This month 40 years ago, South Africa learned an important truth which shaped our future - that people without power can challenge those who have it, but only if they act together.

The lesson was taught by the Durban strikes of 1973; they began a process which shifted power to working people and played an important role in defeating apartheid.

The Durban Strikes 1973 ("Human Beings with Souls")

In January 1973 South Africa witnessed a momentous chain of events in its political history. The Durban Strikes were a turning point in the confrontation between the country's minority rulers and the worker majority. Motivated by material need and underpinned by principles of democracy and equality, the strikes conjoined academics, workers and political leaders among others, in a struggle that was to redefine the South African political landscape in the years to follow.

Nigel Gibson interviewed on the Marikana Massacre on ckut25FM, Montreal

Click here to download this radio programme in mp3.

What would Biko have done?

by Imraan Buccus, The Mercury, 19 September 2012

SOUTH Africa is going through a tough time politically. Having commemorated the anniversary of Steve Biko’s death last week, I thought it appropriate to dwell on the reflections around Biko and what this means for the crisis of leadership that we face in SA. Important I think, especially in a city central to the Biko story.

September 12 has become something of an unofficial day of remembering Steve Biko and reflecting on his legacy. Amidst growing anger in activist circles about attempts to “privatise” the right to remember Biko it is pleasing to note the diversity of speakers and events. Barney Pityana, Biko’s close comrade and the man who actually coined the phrase “black man, you’re on your own”, spoke in Pretoria. Here in Durban the eminent philosopher Dr Percy More spoke to my students and in Cape Town the great Nigerian writer, Ben Okri, spoke.

Richard Turner's Contribution to a Socialist Political Culture in South Africa 1968 - 1978

William Keniston, MA Thesis, 2010

Richard Turner, a banned political science lecturer from the University of Natal, was assassinated on the 8th of January, 1978. In the ten years preceding, Turner had been actively involved in a wide range of activities radically opposed to apartheid and capitalism. Turner was a remarkable professor, who taught his students more through questioning and dialogue than lecture. Turner had a significant impact on left wing white students. He played an important role in encouraging white activists to understand Black Consciousness as a radical politics to be embraced, rather than shunned. Turner encouraged whites to find a role for themselves within a struggle that he saw as driven by Black demands and programmes. In addition, Turner was involved in the emerging trade union movement, following the wildcat strikes in 1973. He participated in creating the Institute for Industrial Education, which had a curriculum focused on increasing class consciousness amongst workers building democratic trade unions.

The Durban Moment: Revisiting politics, labour & resistance in the 1970s

Re-imagining South Africa: Black Consciousness, radical Christianity and the New Left, 1967 – 1977

by Ian Macqueen, PhD Thesis, 2011

This thesis places Black Consciousness in comparative perspective with progressive politics in South Africa in the late 1960s and the 1970s. It argues that the dominant scholarly focus on Black Consciousness, which is passed over as a ‘stage’ in the Black struggle against white supremacy, insufficiently historicises the deeper roots, and the wider resonances and ideological contestations of the Black Consciousness movement. As they refined their political discourse, Black Consciousness activists negotiated their way through the progressive ideologies that flourished as part of the wider political and social ferment of the 1960s. Although Black Consciousness won over an influential minority of radical Christians, a more contested struggle took place with nascent feminism on university campuses and within the Movement; as well as with a New Left-inspired historical and political critique that gained influence among white activists.

Heeding the call to capture

Cedric Nunn outside the KwaMuhle
Museum in Durban (Rafs Mayet)

 by Niren Tolsi, Mail & Guardian

Cedric Nunn's 30-year career retrospective at Johannesburg's Museum Africa is a powerful reminder that South Africa's history haunts the present.

In clear black and white it charts several stories with no seeming end, such as the defiance and humanity exuded by farm labourers facing forced removal in the 1980s, similarly mirrored in 2011 by shack-dweller struggles against evictions to "temporary relocation areas".

Moral Decay and Social Reconstruction Richard Turner and Radical Reform

by Eddie Webster, Theoria, 1993

In 1972 Richard Turner published a remarkable book, The Eye of the Needle: Towards Participatory Democracy in South Africa. In this wok he stressed the capacity of people to change the world in which they lived while at the same time providing them with a vision of a future South Africa based on participatory democracy . Most importantly, Turner placed heavy emphasis on the significance of black workers in the economy . He believed that it was through collective organization, especially trade unions, that black people could exercise some control over their lives and influence the direction of change in South Africa.

'Brushing History Against the Grain': Oppositional Discourse in South Africa

by Tony Morphet, The Rick Turner Memorial Lecture, Durban, 1990

Click here to download this article.

Eddie Webster, the Durban moment and new labour internationalism

by Rob Lambert, Transformation, 2010

An alternative to neo-liberal globalisation

The struggle for an alternative to self-regulating global capitalism, commonly described as neo-liberal globalisation, needs to be contested both at the level of ideas (theory/ideology) and strategy (movement/politics). Firstly, a vision of an alternative model of economy, politics and society, grounded in democratic social regulation has to be forged. Harvey refers to this as 'thought experiments'--painting fantastic pictures of a future society (Harvey 2000:49,). Secondly, realising such a vision depends upon imagining and struggling for a new kind of global social movement, which creates active, globally coordinated civil societies, driven by the desire for a more humane, just way of working and living. Defining the role of unions within such a movement is contested, with some arguing that unions have become an obstacle to the realisation of such a movement (Waterman 2009).

Black Consciousness in Dialogue: Steve Biko, Richard Turner and the ‘Durban Moment’ in South Africa, 1970 – 1974

Ian McQueen's 2009 paper on the 'Durban Moment' gives some sense of the degree to which the university was a central site for the politics of BC, as well as support for the black trade union movement, in the early 1970s. It is online here.