Mbuyiseni Ndlozi grew up fatherless. When he excelled in matric, and his father reached out to him, he turned away. Yet, years later, when he stumbles upon his father’s name while studying the 1984 Vaal Uprising for his doctorate, he decides to interview him . . .
In Love and Violence, based on this original research, Ndlozi explores colonial violence and its impacts, including ‘black-on-black’ violence and black self-hatred. With the youth revolt of the 1980s, black youth wrestled back their humanity, in the streets and in the schools, transcending what he terms the state of ‘permanent juniority’.
Looking at self-defence units and com-tsotsis in the Vaal, Ndlozi suggests that our history offers us a new theory of emancipation grounded in political love. Late colonial rule did not succeed in eclipsing what is most human in blacks – freedom.
Finally, he reviews the 1994 break with apartheid, asking if there is a difference between apartheid and what comes after. Unlike many critics of the post-apartheid era, Ndlozi argues that a miracle did occur.
Uncompromising, challenging, yet eloquent and lyrical, Love and Violence is a brutally honest, urgent examination of race and resistance in our time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mbuyiseni Ndlozi holds a PhD in Political Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand. He is known as an activist, incisive thinker, public intellectual and host of the African Renaissance Podcast. He currently serves as a senior fellow at the Thabo Mbeki Foundation.
'Love and Violence: The Revolt Against Permanent Juniority' is published by Jonathan Ball Publishers
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