History Matters

In honor of the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the United Democratic Front (UDF), SAHO is pleased to share some rare, historic footage shot at the National UDF launch event in Mitchells Plain on 20 August 1983. Rev. Frank Chikane gives keynote address at the launch and outlines the necessity for a united front [...]

Apparently the Creed of the white kid in South Africa has been doing the email rounds for some months now, it never reached my inbox but it found me in cyberspace on Facebook. For those of you who have not read it either, here is a sample of what you’ve been missing out on: We [...]

Allan Boesak – Reflections Twenty Five Years after the Launch of the United Democratic Front.

Mervyn Bennun, writing in Business Day today, discusses the constitutional principles of a fair trial with regard to the Jacob Zuma saga. It makes for very excellent commentary and is well worth reading. 

The South African History Archive is embroiled in a dispute with the Presidency and it seems the presidency is behaving imperiously  again …

Ebrahim Fakir – Last week in Business Day Rhoda Kadalie launched a wild ad hominem attack on several people, including myself …

Attention all volunteers, activists, concerned citizens, politicians and recorders of knowledge The events that began in May 2008 relating to xenophobia in South Africa have resulted in the displacement of approximately 80 000 people as well as 62 deaths and significant psychological trauma to countless individuals. At first, the imperative for civil society lay in [...]

Ebrahim Fakir – Politics in Zimbabwe, like politics everywhere, is tendentious and fractious, characterized by ideological nuance, policy variation and contending political trajectories, even within relatively coherent political parties. Zimbabwean politics, however, has displayed these characteristics to an unusual degree. It is a sad history …

Thomas Alberts – The implication that the fate of Zimbabwe is tied to the peculiarities of its ruler’s personality is hardly novel nor unique to Zimbabwe, though the word ‘fate’ might not carry the same weight in democracies as it does in dictatorships. But even in democracies, the politics of saving face is underestimated …