The dusty Karoo town of Cradock has at last taken its rightful place in the South African liberation narrative. This comes with the official launch of Michael Tetelman’s book titled italWe Can: Black Politics of Cradock, South Africa – 1948-1985/ital to be held in Cradock on 28 November.
The dusty Karoo town of Cradock has at last taken its rightful place in the South African liberation narrative. This comes with the official launch of Michael Tetelman’s book titled italWe Can: Black Politics of Cradock, South Africa – 1948-1985/ital to be held in Cradock on 28 November.
Tetelman, who hails from Falls Church, Virginia (United States) did his PhD dissertation on the topic while at Northwestern University. Tetelman was in residence in Cradock and at Rhodes University while he crafted the dissertation.
The dissertation was rescued from obscurity when the head of Rhodes Cory Library Jeff Peires found that it merited publication and included it in the Chris Hani Liberation Route Project. In a few short months Rhodes University’s Institute of Social and Economic Research and the Cory Library massaged the dissertation into a book.
Current Cory Library head Cornelius Thomas said that the book “reflects the broader freedom struggle at the community or grassroots level in South Africa and shows our protest history in all its naked horrors, enduring contradictions, and occasional benign nuances.
“Tetelman crafts a tapestry wherein both rulers and activists struggle for power and justice in a complex society. In this process we see fear stalking government policy-makers and a combination of boldness and uncertainty exhibited by anti-segregation and anti-apartheid formations up to 1960. After a period of repression, the struggle transitioned to a bolder, even violent, approach that led to the rendezvous of negotiations as of the late 1980s.”
Tetelman will travel especially from the United States to launch and autograph his book which so poignantly fleshes out our national narrative.
