Past Event

Due to the unforeseen cancellation of Irvin Jim’s visit, we have combined the heretofore separate events of the film screening and discussion of Miners Shot Down and John S. Saul’s book launches .

Institute of African Studies at Carleton University and Octopus Books present veteran analyst and activist John S. Saul who will participate in the film screening of the award-winning documentary, Miners Shot Down with a launch of his latest book A Flawed Freedom, Rethinking Southern African Liberation. As part of discussion for his book, John will offer the context of the incident depicted in the film takin place in South Africa.

The discussion will be chaired by Toby Moorson, Sessional Lecturer, Institute of African Studies and PhD Candidate, Department of History, Queen’s University.

This is part of the one-day conference, “South Africa after Apartheid: Critical Reflections” which occurs on Friday, November 7th

ABOUT A FLAWED FREEDOM

Twenty years on from the fall of apartheid in South Africa, veteran analyst and activist John S. Saul explores the liberation struggle, placing it in a regional and global context. Saul looks at how initial optimism has given way to a sense of crisis following soaring inequality levels and the massacre of workers at Marikana.

With chapters on South Africa, Tanzania, and Mozambique, Saul investigates the reality of southern Africa’s post-“liberation” plight, drawing on the insights of Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral, and assessing claims that a new “precariat” has emerged.

Saul examines the ongoing “rebellion of the poor,” which has shaken the region and may signal the possibility of a new and more hopeful future.

ABOUT THE FILM

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.

What emerges is collusion at the top, spiralling violence and the country’s first post-apartheid massacre. South Africa will never be the same again.

Afterwards we’ll have a Q and A with the author, John S. Saul.

Directed by Rehad Desai and produced by Anita Khanna.

ABOUT JOHN S. SAUL

John S. Saul has been, since the 1960s, an activist in support of southern African liberation both in his native Canada and in southern Africa itself; he is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 by the Canadian Association of African Studies for his writing and lecturing on South Africa.