Learning from Robben Island

Оглавление

Govan Mbeki. Learning from Robben Island

Introduction

Ruth First: In Memoriam

Reply to P.W. Botha’s offer. to release on condition we. renounce violence

Comrade Moses Mabida: In Memoriam

The rise and growth of. Afrikaner capital. I

The rise and growth of. Afrikaner capital. II. The resultant socio-politico- economic effects

The rise and growth of. Afrikaner capital. III. The birth of a fascist dictatorship

Good organisation: The key. to success

Good organisation: Carrying the organisation to the Bantustans

Notes on leafletting and. pamphleteering

Notes on the business cycle, unemployment, inflation and gold

Economic history: South Africa

Monopoly capitalism in South. Africa: Its role and extent

Movements in African. real wages: 1939-1969

Who benefits from apartheid?

A note on the comment on the. paper on apartheid

A discussion document (3/B)

Supplement to 3/B

The ANC and Student. Organisation

Afterword

Отрывок из книги

GOVAN MBEKI

from Robben Island

.....

We encouraged people to study. It is good for them. It is good for our discipline too. It is good for them to improve their qualifications. It is also good for their parents. Like before I was released, there was a young chap from UWC [the University of the Western Cape], Leonard. We asked for a report from the section: “Who are studying of the new chaps? Who are studying and what are they doing?” So we are given the report and it shows that Leonard is not studying. So we make an enquiry why is Leonard not studying. Leonard replies, saying, “Look, here’s Comrade Mteto in this section” (it was section B), “here’s Comrade Mteto, he has no degree and yet he is up and up his politics and he has given us guidance here. Why should I bother? I want to concentrate on political studies.” So we replied, “Leonard, when your parents took you to the UWC they expected you to come out of there with a degree for your good and for their own good, and their satisfaction as parents – and now that you are here, the organisation stands in loco parentis! You’ve got to study!”10

But as well as encouraging educational activities from literacy skills to postgraduate degrees, the ANC leadership on the Island also devised a programme of political education. A good deal of less formalised political education took place in earlier years, but it was mainly after 1979 and especially in the early 1980s that a full-blown course of studies was devised, material prepared and circulated, and study groups set up. The project was both more necessary and more feasible at this time.

.....