THE NEW RADICALS
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Shirley de Kock Gueller reviews The New Radicals for the Cape Times

Mark Heywood on The New Radicals in Daily Maverick



http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2014-07-04-the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same/

First glimpse: an extract from Chapter One

'The imposing figure sitting at the fire had a laugh that came from deep within his chest. He had consumed as much cheap red wine as the rest of us, maybe more. Chortling, he moved over, put his arms around my waist and lifted me up. 'This one,' roared Steve Biko, 'this one understands.'

It was April 1970, and we were huddled around a fire at the Redacres Mission, near Howick in Natal. Blankets helped to protect us from the icy winter. A large flagon of Tassenberg, now nearly empty, rested on the ground. The group included the University of Natal political philosopher Rick Turner; Neville Curtis, president of the National Union of South African Students (Nusas); and his sister, Jeanette, the Transvaal regional director of Nusas. Biko was president of the South African Students' Organisation (Saso), which was increasingly challenging the multi-racial liberalism that Nusas had championed over many years.

I was 17 years old, having recently finished school in Pretoria and then registered as a student at the University of the Witwatersrand. The journey which had brought me from the administrative capital of apartheid to this fireside gathering had been short in time, but of tumultuous intensity.'

- From The New Radicals. A Generational Memoir, by Glenn Moss. Published by Jacana Media, 2014.

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