IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/revape/v41y2014i139p120-124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

'More comfortably without her?': Ruth First as writer and activist

Author

Listed:
  • John S. Saul

Abstract

This article draws on a speech made at the Ruth First Symposium in London in June 2012. It describes Ruth First's role as a writer, political organiser and mobiliser of the freedom struggle within and without South Africa, drawing attention to her intellectual contribution and underscoring the importance of her Maputo years, with their broader significance. It discusses the personal tensions that many had with her, but points out that there was always a political issue at stake in these disagreements. It stresses her role as a scholar-activist, and following Brecht suggests that her assassination was an attempt by the assassins to 'sleep more comfortably'. It then draws powerfully on a letter from Rusty Bernstein to pose the question of what First would have made of the contemporary situation in South Africa, where the 'Empire of Capital' is still dominant.

Suggested Citation

  • John S. Saul, 2014. "'More comfortably without her?': Ruth First as writer and activist," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(139), pages 120-124, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:revape:v:41:y:2014:i:139:p:120-124
    DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2014.878082
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03056244.2014.878082
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/03056244.2014.878082?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:revape:v:41:y:2014:i:139:p:120-124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CREA20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.