Open letter to Adriaan Basson

Dear Mr. Basson,

A friend who thought I might need to get a copy of the book and read what you had written informed me about your book.

I made a request to your editor at the City Press and she initially thought she could make an advance copy available to me. You see my reason for making this request is that the book is about the ANC and its leaders and in the main the President of the ANC and his family.

Unfortunately, it would appear that you were not very happy to provide me with an advance copy and whilst I can live with that, it seemed childish to say the least. I now have a copy bought at the princely sum of R300.00.

I have corrected my friend and told her that she may have thought of you as having written a book. What you have done is to compile a number of articles, court records, named the names of minor children without the permission of their parents despite the Bill of Rights enshrining the rights of children and you insult various members of the NEC of the ANC.

It seems you were hoping this diatribe would influence the delegates at the Mangaung conference. I am still reading the book, its not a good read, because it is nuanced opinions that have been regurgitated a number of times.

May I point out one matter to you that it seems the affable Mr. Jonathan Ball your publisher overlooked? In the introduction of the book you make a completely factually incorrect statement. I won't bother you much, but perhaps you should reflect a little on the following fact:

President Jacob Zuma joined the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), which had been formed in 1955, in 1959. He was active in SACTU and attended the SACTU night school, which taught him and other members about trade unionism. Among some of his teachers was Moses Mabhida who was a SACTU leader then, and later the Secretary General of the South African Communist Party.

After serving ten years in Robben Island he came back and joined the trade union movement in the early 1970's soon after the 1972/72 Durban Strikes, which revived trade unionism in the early 1970's.

There is not much else to say about this book, but I am sure that you will enjoy its cut and paste technique. It is interesting writing style where the notion of balance is completely absent. Ah but then you are a new author and there is this matter of poetic licence. Not everything you say has to be perfect or perfectly correct.

May you live long and prosper.

>> Jessie Duarte
NEC member of the ANC

This article first appeared in ANC Today, the weekly online newsletter of the African National Congress.

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