Frederik van Zyl Slabbert

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Frederik van Zyl Slabbert (born March 2, 1940 in Pretoria , † May 14, 2010 in Johannesburg ) was a South African politician and sociologist.

Life

Van Zyl Slabbert studied three semesters Theology , then Sociology at Stellenbosch University . After teaching and doing his doctorate, he became professor of sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1973 .

In 1974 he was elected to the South African parliament, where he was initially the only opponent of apartheid alongside Helen Suzman . He joined the Progressive Party , which became the Progressive Federal Party (PFP) in 1977 . In 1979 he became party chairman. In the 1981 general election , the party won 26 seats in parliament. In 1986 he withdrew from parliament to pursue extra-parliamentary opposition politics. So he organized a meeting of 60 influential white South Africans with top politicians from the then banned African National Congress (ANC) in Dakar , the Dakar Conference , and Leverkusen with financial support from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation . From 1988 he was on the board of directors of the opposition newspaper Vrye Weekblad .

In the 1990s van Zyl Slabbert was, among other things, chairman of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange , and he also worked for the South African branch of the Open Society Institute .

From 2008 to 2009 he was Chancellor of Stellenbosch University.

Works

  • (with David J. Welsh): South Africa's options. Strategies for sharing power , 1979, ISBN 0-312-74696-2 .
  • (as editor): South Africa. Dilemmas of evolutionary change , 1980, ISBN 0-86810-028-5 .
  • The last white parliament , 1985, ISBN 0-86850-113-1 .
  • The quest for democracy. South Africa in transition , 1992, ISBN 0-14-015853-7 .
  • (with Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley): Comrades in business. Post-liberation politics in South Africa , 1997, ISBN 0-624-03601-4 .

Honors

In 2014 van Zyl Slabbert was posthumously awarded the Order of the Baobab in silver.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. David Beresford: Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert obituary . Obituary. Online at Guardian.co.uk May 16, 2010, accessed May 14, 2010.
  2. Ulrich van der Heyden: The Dakar process. The beginning of the end of apartheid in South Africa. Solivagus Praeteritum, Kiel 2018, ISBN 978-3-9817079-9-1 , p. 79-86 .
  3. Heribert Adam: Meeting in Leverkusen: How Communist is the ANC? . In: Die ZeitOnline of November 4, 1988, accessed on July 6, 2013.
  4. In an ersatz-Gothic lair, four rebelle with a cause. In: Weekly Mail of October 14, 1988
  5. List of recipients of the order 2014 (English), accessed on January 10, 2017