Tracing the unbreakable thread: non-racialism in South Africa today

This project constitutes the first phase of a two-year initiative that SAHA, in collaboration with Julie Frederikse will conduct in 2015-2016, drawing on archival materials to prompt inter-generational dialogues about and educational engagements with the rich history of non-racialism in South Africa, and how this legacy may contribute to the building on a non-racial democracy in South Africa, as entrenched in the South African Constitution.

Julie Frederikse's three texts, The unbreakable thread: non-racialism in South Africa (1990), South Africa: a different kind of war (1986) and None but ourselves: masses vs media (1982), as well as the related research materials archived in SAHA Collection AL2460: The Julie Frederikse Collection, serve as a starting point for this project as they provide visually innovative and accessible ways to engage with the direct experiences of individuals fighting for democracy; provide diverse, thought-provoking and profoundly people-centric accounts of everyday experiences of the masses living through the often inter-connected history of liberation struggles in the region and give a comprehensive exploration of the issue of non-racialism.

Cover of the 1990 Ravan Press edition of "The Unbreakable Thread: Non-racialism in South Africa"Project Goals and Activities


  • To digitise the 3 publications written by Julie Frederikse and create an online repository on non-racialism, drawing on these publications and research materials;


  • To launch a 25th anniversary comemorative online edition of The unbreakable thread, with a dialogue forum to be held at Constitution Hill for Heritage Month 2015, at which participants will be invited to reflect on what non-racialism means in contemporary South Africa;


  • To use extracts from these books, along with audio and visual materials to vreate a multimedia educational feature to be published online and integrated into social media platforms to stimulate discussion and learning about what non-racialism means in the making of democracy today.

 

 

The first phase of this project is being funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. 

For more information about this project contact info@saha.org.za

See the online inventory of the Julie Frederikse Collection (AL2460)