Patrick Duncan (human rights activist)

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Patrick Baker Duncan (born September 29, 1918 in Johannesburg , † June 4, 1967 in London ) was a South African colonial official, politician, anti-apartheid activist , journalist and writer.

Life

childhood and education

Patrick Duncan was born in Johannesburg as the son of the Scottish politician and later Governor General of the South African Union, Sir Patrick Duncan . His mother Alice Duncan, née Dold, was of German descent . He had two younger brothers and a younger sister. At the age of eleven, he contracted osteomyelitis in the knee and was permanently disabled as a result. He spent a year in Lausanne for healing purposes and then attended Diocesan College in Cape Town . He continued his school career at Winchester College , UK , and eventually studied at Balliol College , Oxford , where he took courses in philosophy, political science and economics, but eventually earned a degree in French. At Balliol College he met Helmuth James Graf von Moltke in 1938 , who introduced him to the Kreisau district during a stay in Kreisau . Duncan supplemented his stay in Germany with visits to his mother's relatives and a three-week activity in July 1938 in a youth camp of the Reich Labor Service , where he got an impression of the National Socialist system .

Worked for the British colonial authorities

When the war started he volunteered, but was turned away because of his stiff knee. In 1941 Duncan began his career in the British colonial administration of Basutoland - later Lesotho - as Assistant District Officer. He learned to speak Sesotho fluently. As early as 1943 he wrote under the pseudonym Melanchthon (German: "Black Earth") a paper on the problem of soil erosion in Basutoland. Duncan financially supported the native writer Thomas Mofolo , expropriated in South Africa under the Natives Land Act . In 1945 he was appointed private secretary to the High Commissioner in Cape Town. In 1947 he married Cynthia Ashley Cooper, who later became Lady Bryan. With her he had two sons and two daughters. After his wedding, he returned to his previous position in Basutoland. In 1949 he lived temporarily in London, where he took courses at the London School of Economics . In Basutoland Duncan rose to Judicial Commissioner (about: "Commissioner for Justice") in 1951 . During this time he wrote the handbook Sotho laws and customs, which also contained the traditional Laws of Lerotholi , served as the basis for the case law in the colony and was printed in 1960. His assessor was the future Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan , whose rise he accompanied. It was through their conversations on the long travels through Basutoland that Jonathan became interested in politics.

Opposition work in South Africa

After the National Party's victory in the 1948 elections , Duncan became involved in South African politics. He turned against racism and represented the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi , Satyagraha . In 1952 Duncan left the colonial service and bought a farm in the Orange Free State near the border with Basutoland. During this time he was active in the Defiance Campaign and demonstrated together with Gandhi's son Manilal in Germiston , which led to his arrest and a sentencing to three months of forced labor.

He worked with the African National Congress (ANC), but distrusted it because, as an anti-communist , he sharply rejected its cooperation with the South African Communist Party . In 1955 he joined the Liberal Party of South Africa (LPSA), where he was part of the radical wing. 1956 to 1957 Duncan was the party's national organization leader. In 1958 he moved to Cape Town, where he published the fortnightly newspaper Contact . The paper was aimed at South Africans of all population groups and was close to the LPSA, but was clearly anti-communist.

Duncan supported Jonathan in 1959 in founding the later ruling Basotho National Party (BNP). In the same year he ran in the Cape Town constituency of Sea Point for election to the Parliament of the Cape Province . He represented the intention to also allow non-whites in the swimming pools of the seaside resort, whereupon the vote turned in favor of the candidate of the United Party . In 1960 it was Duncan who mediated between demonstrators and police during the march of around 30,000 blacks in Cape Town, under the leadership of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) . He was banned for the first time in March 1961, and again in March of the following year. His stay was limited to the Cape Town area, but he fled to Basutoland. There he bought two retail stores in the Quthing district and was the first white man to join the PAC in 1963 because he now refused to use violence. Duncan met with representatives of the Kennedy government in the United States and spoke to the UN Special Committee on Apartheid in New York . On his way back, he was told in London that he had been declared an undesirable person in Basutoland.

Activities in Algeria

In 1964, Duncan published the book South Africa's rule of violence on state repression in South Africa for Methuen Publishing in London . He became the PAC representative for North Africa and lived in Algeria . In 1965 he wrote a letter congratulating Jonathan after his election victory . The PAC, which had supported the Basutoland Congress Party , removed him from his post. Duncan stayed in Algeria and worked in Constantine for the aid organization Comité chrétien de service en Algérie ( CCSA ), which was initiated as part of Christian refugee aid activities.

Duncan fell ill with aplastic anemia in his later years and died in a London hospital in 1967.

bibliography

  • 1960: Sotho laws and customs. Oxford University Press.
  • 1964: South Africa's rule of violence. Methuen, London.
  • 1975: Man and the earth. Volturna Press, Peterhead, Aberdeenshire

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ CJ Driver: Patrick Duncan: South African and Pan-African. James Currey Publishers, Martlesham 2000, ISBN 978-0-85255773-0 , p. 4. Excerpts from googlebooks.com
  2. ^ CJ Driver: Patrick Duncan: South African and Pan-African. James Currey Publishers, Martlesham 2000, ISBN 978-0-85255773-0 , p. 25. Excerpts from googlebooks.com
  3. ^ CJ Driver: Patrick Duncan: South African and Pan-African. James Currey Publishers, Martlesham 2000, ISBN 978-0-85255773-0 , p. 31. Excerpts from googlebooks.com
  4. ^ CJ Driver: Patrick Duncan: South African and Pan-African. James Currey Publishers, Martlesham 2000, ISBN 978-0-85255773-0 , p. 28. Excerpts from googlebooks.com
  5. ↑ a b c d e f portrait at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on April 1, 2015
  6. ^ CJ Driver: Patrick Duncan: South African and Pan-African. James Currey Publishers, Martlesham 2000, ISBN 978-0-85255773-0 , p. 57. Excerpts from googlebooks.com
  7. ^ Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 126.
  8. ^ CJ Driver: Patrick Duncan: South African and Pan-African. James Currey Publishers, Martlesham 2000, ISBN 978-0-85255773-0 , p. 258. Excerpts from googlebooks.com
  9. ↑ YouCaxton Publications Publishing Information
personal data
SURNAME Duncan, Patrick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Duncan, Patrick Baker (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African colonial official, politician, anti-apartheid activist, journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Johannesburg
DATE OF DEATH 4th June 1967
Place of death London