For Joe Slovo Informal Settlement in Cape Town, see: Joe Slovo (Cape Town).

Joe Slovo (23 May 1926 – 6 January 1995) was a South African politician, long-time leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP), and leading member of the African National Congress.

Life[link]

Slovo was born in Obeliai, Lithuania to a Jewish family who emigrated to South Africa when he was eight. His full name was Yossel Mashel Slovo. His father worked as a truck driver in Johannesburg. Although his family were religious, he became an atheist who retained respect for "the positive aspects of Jewish culture".^[1] Slovo left school in 1941 and found work as a dispatch clerk. He joined the National Union of Distributive Workers and, as a shop steward, was involved in organising a strike.

Slovo joined the SACP in 1942. Inspired by the Red Army's battles against the Nazis on the Eastern Front of World War II, Slovo volunteered to fight in the war, afterwards joining the Springbok Legion, a multiracial radical ex-servicemen's organization, upon his return.^[2][3]

Between 1946 and 1950 he completed a law degree at Wits University and was a student activist. He was in the same class as Nelson Mandela and Harry Schwarz. In 1949 he married Ruth First, another prominent Jewish anti-apartheid activist and the daughter of SACP treasurer Julius First. They had three daughters, Shawn, Gillian and Robyn. First was assassinated in 1982 by order of Craig Williamson, a major in the Apartheid security police.^[4]

Both First and Slovo were listed as communists under the Suppression of Communism Act and could not be quoted or attend public gatherings in South Africa. He became active in the South African Congress of Democrats (an ally of the ANC as part of the Congress Alliance) and was a delegate to the June 1955 Congress of the People organised by the ANC and Indian, Coloured and white organisations at Kliptown near Johannesburg, that drew up the Freedom Charter. He was arrested and detained for two months during the Treason Trial of 1956. Charges against him were dropped in 1958. He was later arrested for six months during the State of Emergency declared after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960.

In 1961, Slovo and Abongz Mbede emerged as two of the leaders of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the ANC, formed in alliance between the ANC and the SACP. In 1963 he went into exile and lived in Britain, Angola, Mozambique and Zambia. In his capacity as chief of staff of MK he codetermined its activities, like the 1983 Church Street bombing. ^[5] Slovo was elected general secretary of the SACP in 1984.

He returned to South Africa in 1990 to participate in the early "talks about talks" between the government and the ANC. Ailing, he stood down as SACP general secretary in 1991 and was succeeded by Chris Hani who was soon murdered. Slovo was given the titular position of chairperson of the SACP.

Slovo was a leading theoretician in both the SACP and the ANC. In the 1970s he wrote the influential essay No Middle Road which stated that the apartheid government would be unable either to achieve stability or to co-opt significant sections of the small but growing black middle class - in other words the only choice was between the overthrow of apartheid or ever greater repression. At the time the SACP's orthodox pro-Soviet and stage-ist view of change in South Africa was dominant in the ANC-led liberation movement.

Being Jewish and a Communist, Slovo was a demonised figure on the far right of Afrikaner society.

In 1989, he wrote "Has Socialism Failed?" which acknowledged the weaknesses of the socialist movement and the excesses of Stalinism, while at the same time rejecting attempts by the left to distance themselves from socialism. Slovo died in 1995 of cancer. In 2004 he was voted 47th in the Top 100 Great South Africans.

It was he who in 1992 proposed the breakthrough in the negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa with the "sunset clause" for a coalition government for the five years following a democratic election, including guarantees and concessions to all sides.

After the elections of 1994 he became Minister for housing in Nelson Mandela's government, until his death in 1995. His funeral was attended by the entire high command of the ANC, and by most of the highest officials in the country, including both Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki.

Anti-Zionism[link]

A committed Marxist internationalist, Slovo was outspoken as a South African critic of Israeli policies, both highlighting the cooperation between Israeli administrations and apartheid-era South Africa and noting what he considered to be the irony of a nation of dispossessed refugees establishing a state that he supposed was founded on the idea of exclusion.

Remembering his brief visit to a Jewish kibbutz in Palestine during his trip back to South Africa from Europe after the Second World War, Slovo, in an unfinished autobiography published following his death, wrote:

"Within a few years the wars of consolidation and expansion began. Ironically enough, the horrors of the Holocaust became the rationalization for the preparation by Zionists of acts of genocide against the indigenous people of Palestine. Those of us who, in the years that were to follow, raised our voices publicly against the violent apartheid of the Israeli state were vilified by the Zionist press. It is ironic, too, that the Jew-haters in South Africa – those who worked and prayed for a Hitler victory – have been linked in close embrace with the rulers of Israel in a new axis based on racism."^[6]

Acclaim[link]

Civic and similar tributes[link]

Shack settlements in both Durban and Cape Town were named after Joe Slovo by their founders. Harrow Road in Johannesburg has now been renamed Joe Slovo Drive. A newly constructed Residence building at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, has been named "Joe Slovo" in honour of the man.^{[citation needed]}

Cinema and music[link]

Joe Slovo appears as a character in two films for which Shawn Slovo wrote the screenplay. In the award-winning 1988 movie A World Apart, he is depicted as "Gus Roth" (played by Jeroen Krabbe). He is played by Malcolm Purkey in the 2006 film Catch a Fire. A song in his tribute was written by Scottish singer-songwriter David Heavenor appearing in 1993 on the album Private The Night Visitors.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Joe Slovo – biographical sketch at the homepage of the ANC
• "Has Socialism Failed?" – article by Joe Slovo, first published January 1990
• "Old Marxist Returns, With Hope for South Africa" – article by Chris Hedges, The New York Times 17 October 1990
• "Joe Slovo: Ode to a mensch" – eulogy by friend Linzi Manicom

Gillian Slovo is a South African born novelist, playwright and memoirist.

Her novels were at first predominantly of the crime and thriller genres, including a series featuring the detective Kate Baeier but she has since written more literary fiction. Her 2000 work, Red Dust, a courtroom drama that explores the meanings and effects of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was made into a film released in 2004 directed by Tom Hooper and starring Hilary Swank, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jamie Bartlett. Her 2004 work Ice Road was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. The novel incorporates real events (the death of Sergey Kirov) with a fictionalised rendering of life during the Siege of Leningrad.

Her 1997 memoir, Every Secret Thing: My Family, My Country, is an account of her childhood in South Africa and her relationship with her parents Joe Slovo and Ruth First — both famous South Africans and major figures in the anti-apartheid struggle who lived perilous lives of exile, armed resistance, and occasional imprisonment, which culminated in her mother's murder by South African forces in 1982. A family memoir in the form of a feature film, A World Apart, was written by her sister Shawn Slovo and starred Barbara Hershey. With Victoria Brittain, she compiled the play Guantanamo- Honor Bound to Defend Freedom that was put on in theatres all over the world.

Gillian Slovo was born on March 15th 1952 and has lived in London since 1964 and has one daughter, Cassie.

English PEN Presidency[link]

Gillian Slovo is the 25th and current President of the English Centre of International PEN, the worldwide writers fellowship. In 2012 she took part in a PEN International delegation to Mexico to protest at the killing of journalists in that country, alongside presidents of other PEN Centres and internationally prominent writers.^[1]

Bibliography[link]

Novels[link]

• Morbid Symptoms (1984)
• Death by Analysis (1986)
• Death Comes Staccato (1987)
• Ties of Blood (1989)
• The Betrayal (1991)
• Looking for Thelma (1991)
• Façade (1993)
• Catnap (1994)
• Close Call (1995)
• Red Dust (2000)
• Ice Road (2004)Review, June 5, 2004
• Black Orchids (2008)

Plays[link]

• Guantanamo : Honor Bound to Defend Freedom (with Victoria Brittain) (2005)
• The Riots (2011 play)

Biography[link]

• Every secret thing : my family, my country (1997)

External links[link]

• Contemporary Writers: Gillian Slovo
• Gillian Slovo discusses Red Dust on the BBC World Book Club
• Audio/Video recording of a talk by Gillian Slovo on "Human Rights and the Arts: Guantanamo in the Theater" at the University of Chicago.

References[link]

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Ruth First (May 4, 1925 – August 17, 1982) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was killed by a parcel bomb addressed specifically to her in Mozambique, where she worked in exile from South Africa.

Family and Education[link]

Ruth First's parents, Julius First and Matilda Levetan, immigrated to South Africa from Latvia as Jewish immigrants in 1906 and became founder members of the South African Communist Party (SACP). Ruth First was born in 1925 and brought up in Johannesburg. Like her parents, she joined the SACP,^[1] which was allied with the African National Congress in its struggle to overthrow the South African government.

She attended Jeppe High School for Girls. The first person in her family to attend University, she received her Bachelor's degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1946. While in University she found that "on a South African campus, the student issues that matter are national issues" With this political outlook as a student at Witwatersrand, she was involved in the founding of the Federation of Progressive Students, also known as the Progressive Students League.^[1] Nelson Mandela, future President of South Africa and Eduardo Mondlane the first leader of the Mozambique freedom movement FRELIMO were among her fellow students.

Once graduated from university, Ruth worked as a research assistant for the Social Welfare Division of the Johannesburg City Council. In 1946, Ruth's political position in the communist party boosted significantly after a series of mine strikes in 1946 where top members of the Communist Party were arrested. First then became the editor-in-chief of the radical newspaper The Guardian, which was subsequently banned by the state.^[1]

In 1949 she married Joe Slovo, a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist and communist.

In addition to her work with The Guardian and its successors, in 1955 Ruth First assumed the position of editor of a radical political journal called Fighting Talk. First was not only active in the anti-apartheid movement through her journalism, but also through political action. First and her husband Slovo were founding members of the African National Congress which resisted the South African government. She was also active in the extensive riots of the 1950s.^[1]

Treason Trial and Detention[link]

Ruth First was one of the defendants in the Treason Trial of 1956-1961, alongside 156 other leading anti-apartheid activists who were key figures in the Congress Alliance. After the state of emergency, that followed the Sharpesville massacre in 1960, First was listed and banned. She could not attend meetings, publish, and could not be quoted. In 1963 during the government's crackdown First was imprisoned and held in isolation without charge for 117 days under the South African apartheid government's ninety-day detention laws. She was the first white woman to be detained under the ninety-day detention law.^[2]

Exile and Assassination[link]

First went into exile in London in March 1964, where she was active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. She became a Research Fellow at the University of Manchester in 1972. Between 1973-1978 she lectured in development studies at the University of Durham, although she spent periods of secondment at universities in Dar es Salaam and Lourenco Marques (Maputo).

In November 1978 First took up a post as Director of the research training programme at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique. Here she continued to work for the downfall of the apartheid regime. She was assassinated by order of Craig Williamson, a major in the South African Police, on August 17, 1982, when she opened a letter bomb that had been sent to her university.^[3]

Memoir and Other Media Tributes[link]

First's book 117 Days is her account of her 1963 arrest, imprisonment, and interrogations by the South African Police Special Branch. It was first published in 1965. First's imprisonment was characterised by extensive solitary confinement and the memoir provides a detailed account of how she endured isolation and sensory deprivation" and withstood "pressure to provide information about her comrades to the Special Branch."^[2]

The 1988 movie A World Apart, from a screenplay by her daughter Shawn Slovo and directed by Chris Menges, is Ruth First's film biography. One of her other daughters, Gillian Slovo, is also a writer.

In 2005 the South African Ministry of the Environment launched an environmental patrol vessel named the Ruth First in her honor.^[4]

Published Works[link]

• First, Ruth (1963). South West Africa. London. 
• First, Ruth (1965). 117 Days. London. 
• First, Ruth; Segal, R (1967). South West Africa: A Travesty of Trust. London. 
• First, Ruth (1970). The Barrel of a Gun: Political Power in Africa and the Coup d’etat in Africa. London. 
• First, Ruth; Steele, J. and C. Gurney, eds. (1972). The South African Connection: Western Investment in Apartheid. London. 
• First, Ruth (1970). Libya: The Elusive Revolution. London. 
• First, Ruth (1983). The Mozambican Miner: Proletarian and Peasant. New York. 

See also[link]

• Marion Sparg - female ANC guerilla sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason
• Today there is a women's residence in Rhodes University in Grahamstown dedicated to her life and achievements.

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Marks, Shula (October 1983). "Ruth First: A Tribute". Journal of Southern African Studies 10 (1): 123–128. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.samford.edu/stable/2636820. Retrieved October 4, 2011. 
2. ^ ^{a b} First, Ruth (1965). 117 Days. Penguin. p. vii. 
3. ^ "Ruth First: Williamson given amnesty". Independent Online (South Africa). 1 Jun 2000. http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=qw959878501885B236. Retrieved 2009-04-08. 
4. ^ "SA's marine protection vessels". SAinfo. 2005-05-20. http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/sustainable/update/vessels170505.htm. Retrieved 2011-12-04. "The vessels, designed in Holland, are specifically built for local and international conditions. They are 47 metres long and eight metres wide, and can reach a top speed of almost 40km per hour and a cruising speed of 30km per hour - twice the speed needed to haul in poachers."  mirror

External links[link]

• Ruth First Papers online
• Ruth First Educational Trust provides opportunities for South African postgraduate students to study at Durham University.
• The First pan-African martyr, Mail & Guardian, Adekeye Adebajo, 25th Aug 2010
• Ruth First Jeppe High School for Girls Memorial Trust was set up in July 2010 and will award scholarships for full tuition at Jeppe High School for Girls for the duration of secondary school education. It is aimed at girls in Grade 7 that show characteristics of leadership, courage, determination and the ability to influence their community positively.