Graham Dominy writes that Ramaphosa should order his diplomats to declassify the IORA strategy.

South Africa got its new Valentine shortly before the clock ticked to midnight on 14th February 2018, as Jacob Zuma exited and Cyril Ramaphosa became first, acting President, then President-Elect and finally President of the Republic in less than twenty-four hours.

Sir Matthew Nathan as Colonial Administrator: From Cape Coast Castle to Dublin Castle via Natal

This article examines the role of Sir Matthew Nathan, British permanent under secretary for Ireland at the time of the Easter Rising in April 1916, and how critical events in his career as soldier, colonial governor and civil servant shaped his conduct and reaction to events in Ireland as the Rising unfolded around him. The article raises issues of identities: namely Nathan’s own identity as an English gentleman, when, given his Jewish background, he was an outsider to that caste. Nathan’s brief military career and lengthier career as a colonial governor earned him high praise as a model bureaucrat. In this paper Nathan’s track from the War Office through government houses situated in West Africa, Hong Kong and Natal to Dublin Castle is traced to illustrate the changes in his character from decisiveness to indecision. While Nathan clearly misread the volatile situation in Ireland over the 1916 Easter weekend, his actions demonstrated both indecision and bureaucratic delaying tactics. It is argued that his experiences with obdurate settler ministers in Natal played a role in shaping his hesitancy at the time of crisis in Dublin and that this hesitancy provided an opportunity for the direct action of the Irish Volunteers. The conclusion is that, at the time of the Irish crisis, Nathan failed to exercise the “power of the personal influence” expected of an experienced governor.

I am greatly honoured to have been invited to present the 2017 Alan Paton Memorial Lecture at my Alma Mater and in a venue that brings back so many memories of my student days.

The newly published Volume 2 of Bill Guest’s history of the University of Natal contains two episodes from the early 1970s which occurred in this hall. They both have a slight bearing on the topic of this lecture. There was a Rag Variety concert held on this stage where Michael Lambert composed the lyrics parodying Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas, particularly The Mikado. He lampooned three major campus personalities of the day: Professors Colin Webb, Colin Gardner and Deneys Schreiner: “a giggling tall historian, an English Pwof who lisps and a bearded scientist”; an indication that there was a liberal tolerance of criticism of the university by students.

One of the more controversial moments in the movement’s history was the burning of paintings during a protest at UCT in early 2016. Graeme (sic) Dominy looks at the challenges this poses to freedom of expression and the South African art world against the backdrop of rising nationalist sentiments.

1966 was a bleak year in South African politics. The National Party Government celebrated the fifth anniversary of the white republic and won its biggest ever majority in the all-white elections in March. The ANC, the SACP, the PAC and their allies were all banned and their leadership was either in exile or in jail. In the Eastern Cape, Verwoerd’s theories of grand apartheid were being test-driven in the nominally autonomous Transkei Bantustan. North of the Limpopo, Ian Smith had recently proclaimed UDI for ‘Rhodesia’ and growled defiance at the world. The Salazar dictatorship in Portugal was still reasonably strong and still ruling Angola and Mozambique. There was apparent substance in the rhetoric of a great white ‘anti-communist’ redoubt in Southern Africa anchored by a powerful white South Africa.