On Firm Ground During a heated exchange in the apartheid-era South African parliament, a senior government minister scolded Helen Suzman, then the lone member of the body that opposed the racially discriminatory system. As a parliamentarian, Mrs. Suzman was a perpetual thorn in the side of the regime, frequently asking questions that exposed the horrors of apartheid, and...
The Idea War Against African AIDS The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West and the Fight Against AIDS by Helen Epstein; 352 pages; Farrar, Straus and Giroux Last year, while visiting a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town along with a group of European tourists, I entered the lair of a sangoma, a witch doctor — or, in culturally sensitive language, a “traditional...
In the Heart of the Country Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa by Padraig O’Malley; Viking; 648 pages; $32.95. To the victors, it seems, go not only the spoils but also the history. In South Africa, that history has largely been written by those sympathetic to the African National Congress, the liberation movement headed by the country’s peerlessly charismatic...