Ruth First

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Ruth First, ca.1960

Heloise Ruth First (born May 4, 1925 in Johannesburg ; † August 17, 1982 in Maputo ) was a white South African anti-apartheid activist , social scientist and university teacher and author . Her life spanned an international sphere of activity, with a focus on Johannesburg, London , Durham , Dar es Salaam and Maputo.

youth

Ruth First grew up in an open-minded and culturally diverse family, which brought her into contact with issues of daily politics in South Africa at an early age. Her parents, Julius and Matilda (Tilly) First (nee Levetan), were Jewish immigrants from Latvia and were among the founding members of the South African Communist Party . The father was the treasurer of this organization.

Education and family

Witwatersrand University

Ruth First spent the first stage of her school days, from around 1936 for two years at the Jewish Government School in Doornfontein (downtown Johannesburg), then at the Johannesburg Girls' High School (Barnato Park) in Berea (district of Johannesburg). She received secondary school education from 1939 to 1941 at Jeppe High School for Girls in Kensington (district of Johannesburg). This school went back in its origin to the Anglican educational institution St. Michael's College . In 1942 she began studying at the Witwatersrand University , which she graduated in 1945 with a bachelor's degree in the field of social sciences. During this period of study she attended readings in sociology , anthropology , economic history and native administration .

In addition to her studies, she was involved in founding the Federation of Progressive Students (FOPS) and worked as secretary of the Progressive Youth Council .

In 1949 she married the Lithuanian- born lawyer Joe Slovo (Yossel Mashel Slovo), who like her was an anti-apartheid activist and later General Secretary of the South Africa Communist Party and a member of the African National Congress Executive Committee . Their marriage resulted in three daughters: Shawn Slovo (* 1950), Gillian Slovo (* 1952) and Robyn Jean Slovo (* 1953).

Professional and political activities

Early journalistic activities

After completing her studies, Ruth First began her first permanent job in 1945 in the Research Division of the Department of Social Welfare of Johannesburg. However, because she did not agree with the existing objectives there, she switched to journalism shortly afterwards. She wrote for the weekly newspaper The Guardian in Johannesburg, most of the editors of which were close to the South African Communist Party and of which she was a member. Ruth First, known in her academic career as an independent Marxist, later distanced herself from this fundamentalist party. Several young women of Jewish origin who were active in the anti-apartheid movement in the following years worked in her editorial environment. These included Sonia Bunting , Sarah Carneson , Pauline Podbrey and Jean Bernardt.

During her editorial work at the Guardian , she focused on precarious working conditions in South Africa. These included the slave-like employment relationships on the potato plantations around Bethal in today's Mpumalanga province , the migrant workers distributed across the country, the living conditions in the slums , the Alexandra bus boycott (1957) and the political activities of women in connection with the so-called passport laws . The reports on the Bethal farms, researched together with Gert Sibande , provided information on the inhumane working conditions in connection with the physical injuries and deaths suffered among the affected farm workers. From 1959, these conditions led to organized protests across the country, which went down in South Africa's history as Bethal Potato Boycott . The Guardian weekly was banned in 1952 and later appeared under other names such as Clarion , People's World , Advance , New Age and Spark . Between 1954 and 1963 Ruth First worked as an editor for Fighting Talk , a Johannesburg monthly.

Repression in South Africa

Because of the increasingly critical political situation in the country, the South African government ordered 600 people to be banned under the Suppression of Communism Act in 1950 . The individual restrictions imposed on the First couple forbade any participation in public events and third parties were prohibited from quoting them in the press.

Together with her husband Joe Slovo and 150 other defendants, including Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu , she was indicted in the popular 1956 Treason Trial . After four years she was acquitted, but was later banned again because of her critical journalistic activities. At the beginning of the state of emergency following the Sharpeville massacre of March 1960, she and her children fled to Swaziland . Her husband and over 2,000 dissidents were imprisoned during this tense domestic phase. After the end of the six-month state of emergency, Ruth First returned to her country and worked as an editor for the Johannesburg newspaper New Age (successor to The Guardian ). During this time she supported the establishment of a mobile radio station (Radio Freedom) in her city. After a trip to neighboring South West Africa , the South African government banned her for a period of five years, which meant that she was only allowed to stay within the administrative district of Johannesburg and was subject to further conditions.

Between 1956 and 1963 Ruth First corresponded with the South African Institute of Race Relations , which dealt with questions of demography and sociology in South Africa. Her book South West Africa , published in 1963 (published by Penguin Books ), is regarded as an early critical work on the transfer of South African racism policies to what was then South West Africa (now Namibia ).

On August 9, 1963, the South African Security Police arrested her under the General Law Amendment Act (known as the 90-Day Detention Act ) in the main hall of the Witwatersrand University library and held her in solitary confinement for 117 days without legal assistance . While in prison, Ruth First experienced mental torture and attempted suicide .

Exile with a focus on Europe

University College (Durham Castle)

After her release, Ruth First went into exile with her three children in London in March 1964, where her husband and father were already living. There she worked as a freelancer for publishers and international organizations and in the following years traveled to numerous countries in the Middle East and Africa. In 1965, she reflected on her imprisonment following the last arrest in her book One Hundred and Seventeen Days (published 1965, republished in 2010). In it she reported on the arrest and interrogation. Your book was filmed shortly after its publication.

From 1967 to 1968 she was doing research in West Africa and Sudan . Her book Barrel of Gun was subsequently published , in which she comments on questions of the anti-apartheid movement in relation to her own biographical facts and about other activists. She also gives a lecture on the coups in Ghana , Nigeria and Sudan and explains her ideas about the future development of Africa's independence.

Ruth First has now been a part of academic seminars in the Netherlands and Great Britain . Between 1972 and 1973 she used a scholarship in the Simon Research Fellow program at the University of Manchester for further academic training. She then received a teaching position in Sociology (Department of Sociology) at Durham University in 1973 . She taught there for a total of six years.

In 1975 Ruth First interrupted this activity to give lectures during the fall semester at the University of Dar es Salaam in the Department of Economics . In January 1976 she returned to Durham.

Activity in Maputo

In 1977 she took over a professorship in Maputo and the function of research director of the Center for African Studies (Centro de Estudos Africanos) at Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique. This research area was under the direction of Aquino de Bragança . During this time she dealt with the situation of African, mainly Mozambican, migrant workers, their living conditions and employment conditions in the South African gold mines . She published the results of this research in 1982 under the title The Gold of Migrant Labor in the Review of African Political Economy .

Between 1980 and 1982 she wrote for the scientific magazine Estudos Mocambiçanos , which she created together with Bragança and which was published in Maputo. She was the editor-in-chief of this periodical. After her death in 1982, the magazine was initially discontinued, but resumed in 1983. From 1974 until her death she was on the editorial team of the Review of African Political Economy , published in London and Sheffield .

In the same year as her, her husband came to Maputo to set up the headquarters of the African National Congress in exile.

Violent death

Ruth First's life ended in 1982 when a letter bomb hit her after a UNESCO conference at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo in the presence of other people. This mail item was provided with the sender address of a UN organization . The background to this murder remained unexplained for a long time. The author and friend Ronald Segal described this attack as "the final act of censorship" (German for example: the final act of censorship).

Only after hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in June 2000 did the perpetrators and the context of the crime become public. As a result, three former officers of the South African Police were responsible, including Craig Williamson , who had also planned and committed other attacks on other people, some with fatal results. With these covert operations, South Africa's security policy at the time pursued the goal of destabilizing the structures of the ANC and SACP and spreading a psychological shock effect within these organizations. The people involved in these attacks received amnesty for their extensive statements. Family members of the victims protested the decision of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Other anti-apartheid activists were also targets for such state bomb attacks, such as Albie Sachs , Joe Slovo or on June 28, 1984 Jeanette Curtis Schoon (an archivist at SAIRR ) with her six-year-old daughter Katryn Schoon in Lubango . Shortly after the assassination, according to what was reported in the Arab News with reference to the AIM , a spokesman for the South African police in Pretoria stated that the government was not commenting on the killing of Ruth First and that it was responding to the ANC allegations of attacks Reject ANC officials in Zimbabwe , Swaziland and Lesotho .

Ruth First was buried in the Llanguene cemetery on the outskirts of Maputo. In addition to her mother, her husband with their three children, numerous ANC representatives, state presidents , members of parliament and ambassadors from 34 countries took part in this ceremony, and condolences from 67 countries and organizations were received to commemorate her death. Until her death, she remained banned in South Africa under the Suppression of Communism Act and was not allowed to be quoted as an author in her country of birth.

Appreciations and honors

Portrait of Ruth First in Orlando East, Soweto
Blue plaque in memory of Ruth First and Joe Slovo in London
  • At Witwatersrand University, the Ruth First Fellowship Committee awards annual scholarships to young journalists as part of the University of the Witwatersrand's Journalism Program . The Ruth First Fellowship bears her name.
  • Fellow scholarships are awarded through the Ruth First Educational Trust (active since 1960 and renamed in memory of her in 1982), based at Durham University in Great Britain .
  • The posthumous award of the Order of Luthuli in silver to Ruth First on April 20, 2006 by the then President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki , for her "outstanding contribution in the fight against apartheid and to promote media freedom in South Africa".
  • Ruth First Memorial Lecture , since 1985 Ruth First Memorial Lecture at Brandeis University
  • With the Student Scholarship Program (SSP) of the Jeppe High School of Girls in Johannesburg, a Ruth First Prize has been awarded for outstanding learning achievements since 2008. The sponsor is the Ruth First Jeppe Memorial Trust under the auspices of Albie Sachs .
  • The Rhodes University in Grahamstown has been awarding scholarships (Ruth First Scholarship) for masters and doctoral students since 2011 and named one of its guest houses after Ruth First.
  • In 2012, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London , together with the Commonwealth Advisory Bureau , hosted a symposium on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Ruth First's death.
  • Nelson Mandela gave a speech on August 17, 1992 as ANC President on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Ruth First's death at a memorial service dedicated to her in Cape Town . Her husband and three children were present.

Publications

  • South West Africa (1963)
  • Statement for the delegation of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid, London April 13, 1964
  • Nelson Mandela, Ruth First: No Easy Walk to Freedom: Articles, Speeches, and Trial Addresses of Nelson Mandela (1965) published by Ruth First in London (review of the Rivonia Trial )
  • One Hundred and Seventeen Days: An account of confinement and interrogation under the South African Ninety-Day Detention Law (1965) / Gefangener Mut: 117 days in a South African prison (1991), published several times
  • South West Africa: Travesty of Trust. The expert papers and findings of the International Conference on South West Africa (together with Ronald Segal) (1967)
  • The Barrel of a Gun: Political Power in Africa and the Coup D'etat (1970), in the United States under the title Power in Africa published
  • Portugal's Wars in Africa (1971) / Portugal's War in Africa (1971)
  • The South African Connection: Western Investment in Apartheid (with Jonathan Steel, Christabel Gurney) (1972)
  • Libya: The Elusive Revolution (1974)
  • Black Gold: The Mozambican Miner, Proletarian and Peasant (1983, posthumously), reviewed in 1984 by Lionel Cliffe ( Leeds University Center for African Studies)
  • Statement for the delegation of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid, London April 13, 1964

Ruth First's estate is in London, in the holdings of The National Archives within the London University: Institute of Commonwealth Studies repository . From this, records were published in 2003 under the title Ruth First papers, 1889-1991 by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London .

Web links

Commons : Ruth First  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ruth First Jeppe Memorial Trust: Who was Ruth First? . on www.ruthfirstjeppetrust.co.za (English)
  2. ^ Maurice Ostroff: The Facts about South African Jews in the Apartheid Era .
  3. ^ Anton Muziwakhe Lembede: A Philosophy of African Nationalism . on www.sahistory.org.za ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sahistory.org.za
  4. ↑ Remember Ruth First: journalist, academic and political activist assassinated by the apartheid state / short biography on www.writingrights.org ( Memento of the original from November 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / writingrights.org
  5. ^ Joe Slovo 1926-1995. Biography of Joe Slovo. on www.sahistory.org.za
  6. ↑ Adekeye Adebajo: The First Pan-African martyr. In Mail & Guardian Online. August 25, 2010
  7. ↑ Barbara Harlow: redlined Africa: Ruth First's Barrel of a Gun . In: Biography, Vol. 25, Issue 1, University of Hawai. 2002, pp. 151-170
  8. ↑ Barbara Harlow: Not “An Account Devoted Exclusively to Fact”: Ruth First's Barrel of a Gun . University of Texas (Abstract)
  9. ^ A b Ruth First Scholarship . on the website of Rhodes University (English; PDF; 657 kB)
  10. ↑ Barbara Harlow: 'Flushed with elation': Ruth First at the University of Dar es Salaam . In: Pambazuka News. Pan-African Voices for Freedom and Justice, Vol. 454, 2009
  11. ↑ Colin Darch: Estudos Moçambicanos . on www.mozambiquehistory.net (English)
  12. ↑ Opac PORBASE: bibliographic evidence . on www.porbase.bnportugal.pt (Portuguese)
  13. ^ Gavin Williams: Ruth First: A Preliminary Bibliography . Oxford. In: Review of African Political Economy, Volume 9, Issue 25, 1982, pp. 54-64
  14. ↑ Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 2003: THE KILLING OF RUTH FIRST, JEANETTE CURTIS SCHOON AND KATRYN SCHOON, pp. 80–82 ( Memento of September 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (English; PDF; 6.6 MB)
  15. ^ Final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2003) Vol. 6, Sect. 1, Chapter 4 Legal Challenges, p. 81
  16. ↑ Statement by the Truth and Reconiliation Commission on the London Bombing, February 17, 1999 (Message from the South African government on the amnesty of some political assassins) ( Memento of April 26, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ^ South African Press Association: Williamson tells TRC he dehumanized his victims . September 14, 1998, report on the statements of the perpetrators before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
  18. ^ Final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2003) Vol. 6, Sect. 3, Chapter 1 The Former South African Government and its Security Forces, p. 260, item 364 (for Jeanette Curtis Schoon and daughter) ( Memento from May 30th 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English; PDF; 480 kB)
  19. ^ University of Witwatersrand: Historical Papers: Records of the South African Institute of Race Relations . Part II SAIRR (English)
  20. ↑ ANC blames S. Africa for killing Mrs. First . Announcement of the Arab News (Jeddah) of August 20, 1982 (PDF; 117 kB)
  21. ↑ Ruth First, Don Pinnock: Ruth First (= Donald Pinnock [Ed.]: Voices of liberation . Volume 2 ). HSRC Press, Pretoria 1997, ISBN 0-7969-1777-9 , pp. 3 (English, 225 pp., Limited preview in Google Book Search).
  22. ^ ANC honors for Ruth First burial. Announcement in Citizen (Johannesburg) of August 24, 1982 (PDF; 55 kB)
  23. ↑ Ruth First Fellowship, University of the Witwatersrand  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / web.wits.ac.za  
  24. ^ Ruth First Fellowship. at www.Journalism.co.za
  25. ^ Ruth First Educational Trust: Further information for applicants . at www.dur.ac.uk (English)
  26. ^ Ruth First Educational Trust
  27. ↑ Message on the website of the South African government of April 18, 2006: Mbeki to honor extraordinary men and women
  28. ^ Department of African and Afro-American Studies, Ruth First Memorial Lecture
  29. ↑ Ruth First Jeppe Memorial Trust: Web presence of the Jeppe High School of Girls, Ruth First Jeppe Scholarship
  30. ^ Ruth First Jeppe Memorial Trust . on www.ruthfirstjeppetrust.co.za (English)
  31. ↑ Rhodes University, Ruth First House (English)
  32. ^ A revolutionary life: Ruth First 1925-1982. on www.commonwealth.sas.ac.uk ( Memento from May 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  33. ↑ Wording of the speech. on www.anc.org  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.anc.org.za  
  34. ↑ a b Statement text on www.anc.org  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.anc.org.za  
  35. ^ Bibliographic entry in the catalog of the National Library of Australia
  36. ↑ brief table of contents on www.abebooks.de
  37. ↑ The Rivonia Aflair. Review by Allen T. Blount. In: Spring 1966 (PDF; 379 kB)
  38. ^ Lionel Cliffe: Ruth First: Black Gold: The Mozambican Miner, Proletarian and Peasant . Book review in: Sociology. Durham, Vol. 18 (1984) No. 1 (PDF; 250 kB)
  39. ^ Entry in National Register of Archives, 1946-82, NRA 44533
personal data
SURNAME First, Ruth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES First, Ruth Heloise
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African sociologist and anti-apartheid campaigner
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Johannesburg , South Africa
DATE OF DEATH 17th August 1982
Place of death Maputo , Mozambique