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13 May 2024 | Story Carmenita Redcliffe-Paul

The University of the Free State (UFS) and the South African Chamber of Commerce United Kingdom (SACC UK) are pleased to present a Global Citizen Series conversation, Exploring Scenarios: South Africa’s Democracy in the face of the next general elections, from the perspective of Clem Sunter, international best-selling author, futurologist, and scenario planner. 

As part of the Global Citizen Webinar Series, international scenario planner and futurologist, Clem Sunter, will join UFS Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Francis Petersen, and SACC UK Chairperson, Sharon Constançon, for a conversation that answers the question – What does the future hold for South Africa’s democracy in the face of the upcoming general elections?

Thirty years ago, the majority of South Africans won the right to vote for the first time, leading to South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. Join us for a conversation on 20 May 2024 as we explore scenarios depicted by Clem Sunter ahead of South Africa’s seventh general elections scheduled for 29 May 2024.

Join the Global conversation for Global Citizens

Date:  Monday, 20 May 2024
SA time: 15:00-16:00 / UK time: 14:00-15:00
The livestream link will be shared with those who RSVP
Enquiries: Tebello Leputla - leputlatb@ufs.ac.za +27 51 401 9199

About Clem Sunter

Clem Sunter, born in Suffolk England on 8 August 1944, gained his education at Winchester College. Before joining Charter Consolidated as a management trainee in 1966, he went to Oxford where he read politics, philosophy, and economics.

He moved to Lusaka in Zambia to work for the Anglo-American Corporation Central Africa in 1971. He then transferred to the head office of the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa in Johannesburg in 1973. He spent most of his succeeding career in the Gold and Uranium Division, where he served as chairman and CEO from 1990 to 1996. During this time, Anglo-American was the largest producer of gold in the world. Until recently he was chairman of the Anglo-American Chairman’s Fund, which was – as stated in a recent survey – the primary corporate social responsibility fund in South Africa. Read more about Clem Sunter.

News Archive

Prof Antjie Krog speaks on verbalising revulsion and the collusion of men
2015-06-26

From the left are Prof Lucius Botes, UFS: Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities; Prof Helene Strauss, UFS: Department of English; Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, UFS: Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies; Prof Antjie Krog, UCT: Department Afrikaans and Dutch; Dr Buhle Zuma, UCT: Department of Psychology. Both Prof Strauss and Dr Zuma are partners in the Mellon Foundation research project.

“This is one of the bitterest moments I have ever endured. I would rather see my daughter carried away as a corpse than see her raped like this.”

This is one of 32 testimonies that were locked away quietly in 1902. These documents, part of the NC Havenga collection, contain the testimonies of Afrikaner women describing their experiences of sexual assault and rape at the hands of British soldiers during the South African War.

This cluster of affidavits formed the foundation of a public lecture that Prof Antjie Krog delivered at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Bloemfontein Campus on Tuesday 23 June 2015. The lecture, entitled ‘They Couldn’t Achieve their Goal with Me: Narrating Rape during the South African War’, was the third instalment in the Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series on Trauma, Memory, and Representations of the Past. The series is hosted by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation Studies at the UFS, as part of a five-year research project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Verbalising revulsion

The testimonies were taken down during the last two months of the war, and “some of the women still had marks and bruises on their bodies as evidence,” Prof Krog said. The victims’ words, on the other hand, struggled to express the story their bodies told.

What are the nouns for that which one sees? What words are permissible in front of men? How does one process revulsion verbally? These are the barriers the victims – raised with Victorian reserve – faced while trying to express their trauma, Prof Krog explained.

The collusion of men

When the war ended, there was a massive drive to reconcile the Boers and the British. “Within this process of letting bygones be bygones,” Prof Krog said, “affidavits of severe violations by white men had no place. Through the collusion of men, prioritising reconciliation between two white male hierarchies, these affidavits were shelved, and, finally, had to suffer an embargo.”

“It is only when South Africa accepted a constitution based on equality and safety from violence,” Prof Krog said, “that the various levels of deeply-rooted brutality, violence, and devastation of men against the vulnerable in society seemed to burst like an evil boil into the open, leaving South African aghast in its toxic suppurations. As if, for many decades, we did not know it was there and multiplied.”

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