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News & Views by Terry Bell
Browsing All Posts filed under »Autobiographical«
Ending up ‘wanted by both the Communist Party & the police’
(Also available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-10-13-reflections-of-a-wayward-boy-wanted-by-the-police-and-the-communists/) The Congress leadership of the revolution had been arrested at Rivonia and was in jail, awaiting trial, a fate that was also to befall the members of the Liberal/Socialist League/African Resistance Movement. But our officially unsanctioned groups were still free, and we were determined that militant resistance, especially the sabotage of […]
A tangled web in the nascent underground
September 18, 2020
(Also available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-09-18-reflections-of-a-wayward-boy-a-tangled-web-in-the-nascent-underground/) Were it not for the seriousness of the matters on the ground, the situation among the ANC supporting opposition in Johannesburg in 1962 could have provided material for a slapstick comedy. There were police spies, SA Communist Party and secret Trotskyist cell members all belonging to the same organisation. Linked to […]
Shorthand, flyposting & a lesson learned
September 5, 2020
(Also available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-08-31-reflections-of-a-wayward-boy-shorthand-flyposting-and-a-lesson-learnt/) Being white and male in the South Africa of 1962, I was doubly privileged. And I also possessed a degree of cheek that got me onto an all-expenses paid journalism course in Cape Town, effectively to learn shorthand. There I met up with some people who would, over the years, become […]
Hairybacks, ‘souties’ & an accidental ANC member
July 13, 2020
Available online at Daily Maverick: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-07-13-reflections-of-a-wayward-boy-hairybacks-soutpiele-and-an-accidental-member-of-the-anc/amp/ Reflections of a wayward boy (4) My life changed during that single day in early 1961 when I returned to the Germiston Advocate newspaper office after attending a Group Areas Board hearing and making my first visit to a township where I met and interviewed people who were about […]
Reflections of a wayward boy (part 2)
June 24, 2020
Daily Maverick version available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-06-22-reflections-of-a-wayward-boy-a-cub-reporter-in-the-dark-heart-of-south-africa/#gsc.tab=0 Pure chance, youthful arrogance and an alcoholic chief reporter who had passed out over his desk one morning in early 1961, provided the ingredients that catapulted me, a wayward school leaver and junior reporter, onto a fast track to radical anti-apartheid politics. In one day, I was set on […]
Reflections of a wayward boy (Part 1)
June 24, 2020
Also available on Daily Maverick: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-06-04-a-nickname-shared-with-dumisa-ntsebeza/#gsc.tab=0 I have been called many things in my day, some of them clearly unprintable. But only once was I labelled wayward which, given the context of my life, is probably accurate. Also, so far as I am concerned, and especially from whence the label came, it was a compliment. […]
Terry Bell Writes 
October 20, 2020
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