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Chargement... Just Defiance: The Bombmakers, the Insurgents and a Legendary Treason Trialpar Peter Harris
   Aucun Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre.  Amarj33t_5ingh | Jul 8, 2022 |   zenosbooks | Sep 9, 2012 | zenosbooks | Sep 9, 2012 | aucune critique | ajouter une critique
Both a riveting courtroom drama and a real-life thriller, A Just Defiance tells the story of four young black South Africans who were arrested for a string of political murders in 1987. In gripping prose, Peter Harris-the white lawyer who defended the men-describes how he came to understand, while constructing the case to save the defendants from the death penalty, the chain of events that led them to undergo training at ANC camps in Angola and return to their homeland to execute some of the apartheid regime's most notorious collaborators. The shocking twists and turns of the high-profile trial kept the public in suspense during the dying days of apartheid.Harris's account of the trial is intercut with flashbacks to instances of the cold-blooded brilliance and deadly efficiency of the squad's operations. We see Nelson Mandela recently released from Robben Island as he begins negotiations that will eventually lead to the assumption of power by the ANC. We read about bomb-making and assassination attempts by both the ANC and the South African police. A critical and popular success in South Africa, this book is a tale of people driven to extremes by injustice and repression, and of ordinary citizens caught up in extraordinary events. Finally, it is the story of a country's search for reconciliation, one that captures the moral vertigo of South Africa's violent apartheid years. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires
 Google Books — Chargement...GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)345.680231Social sciences Law Criminal Law Africa South Africa and Southern AfricaClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne: (4.33)
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The author Peter Harris, a lawyer by nature, undertakes to defend four anti-apartheid resistance fighters in segregation era South Africa in the process inviting the wrath of the entire political machinery against him. Harris is white, his fellow advocates are white and black while the fighters are black. A more combustible mix has never before or since graced South Africa's judiciary.
Against society's better judgement, Harris undertakes to represent the four fighters epitheted as the Delmas four. In the process it is revealed that they are the ANC's (African National Congress's) most effective saboteurs. However, the most brutal revelation is reserved for policeman turned defector Dirk Coetzee who justifies the existence of government sanctioned death squads operating with impunity.
The most conspicuous aspect of this book is the fact that Harris avoids all legal jargon as well as immersion in technicalities to convey his points. Ultimately, the case progresses from being one of waging war against the state to questioning what consists a just war in terms of combating political resistance.
For me, the most poignant moment is at the end when Harris admits that he misses his fellow lawyer who died in an assassination attempt initially targeting him. (