Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in February 1990 was one of the most memorable moments of recent decades. It came a few days after the unbanning of the African National Congress following thirty years during which the ANC had fought against the apartheid state. The ANC, founded a century ago and outlawed in 1960, transferred its headquarters abroad and opened what it termed an External Mission. Voted into office in 1994, the ANC today regards its armed struggle as the central plank of its legitimacy. External Mission is the first study of the ANC’s exile period based on a full range of sources in southern Africa and Europe, including not only the archives of the ANC itself but also of the Stasi, the East German ministry that trained the ANC’s own security personnel. It reveals that the decision to create a guerrilla army known as Umkhonto we Sizwe, which later became the ANC’s armed wing, was made not by the ANC but by its allies in the South African Communist Party, after negotiations with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Many of the strategic decisions made and many of the political issues that arose during the course of the armed struggle had a lasting effect on South Africa, shaping its society even to the present day.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘The real message of Stephen Ellis’s history of the African National Congress (ANC) in exile painfully and palpably obvious between the lines is how the conspiratorial past affects the ruling party to the present day. It makes uncomfortable reading, for it goes some way towards explaining why President Jacob Zuma, a former head of the ANC s intelligence service in exile, and his comrades now running South Africa find it so hard to embrace the notion that a diversity of opinion and tolerance of dissent must be at the heart of any functioning, decent democracy.’ —The Economist
‘[A] book that contains startling revelations about the ANC s flirtation with totalitarianism. … Mr Ellis is a clear-eyed observer of all things African, a fearless butcher of sacred cows. External Mission begins by annihilating conventional understandings of the circumstances surrounding the ANC s 1961 declaration of war on apartheid. According to Mr Ellis, all critical decisions were actually taken by the South African Communist Party (SACP), which sought support from Moscow and Beijing and then bounced the ANC into following its lead. … Mr Ellis goes so far as to report that Mr Mandela was almost certainly a member, at least for a time, of the SACP’s central committee.’ —Wall Street Journal
‘There is hardly a page of this fascinating book does not throw fresh light on South Africa s murky past. Impeccably researched and written in the clear, dispassionate prose of a historian, Stephen Ellis has provided an indispensable guide to the ANC.’ —Martin Plaut, Africa editor, BBC World Service
About the Author
Stephen Ellis is the author of ground- breaking books on the ANC, the Liberian Civil War, religion and politics in Africa and the history of Madagascar, and Professor of Social Sciences at the Free University, Amsterdam.
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