Students filled the Rabb Room in Lincoln Filene Hall last night to listen to Ahmed Kathrada talk about his autobiography, "Memoirs."
Kathrada's discussion was entitled "From Prison to Parliament: The First Ten Years of the New South Africa." Barbara Hogan, a South African Parliament member who spent ten years in prison for protesting apartheid, also spoke.
As a child growing up in a rural neighborhood, Kathrada's friends were separated from each other by segregated schools.
While attending an Indian school in Johannesburg, Katharda wondered why he could not go to school with his friends.
Years later, he joined the political party known as the African National Congress (ANC). As a member, he participated in demonstrations alongside Nelson Mandela.
Formed in 1912, the ANC quietly protested against the racial hierarchy in South Africa, which consisted of whites at the top, followed by Indians, coloreds and blacks. In 1960, the ruling apartheid party made the ANC illegal. In his response, Mandela mobilized, recruited and trained people to bomb European establishments.
Kathrada said that "care was made so no one was harmed" and that the bombs destroyed property only.
In 1964, Mandela and Kathrada, along with six others - five black and one white - were accused of treason and sentenced to life in prison. Kathrada said that the U.S. and Britain accused them as being terrorists.
"Military aid was only given by socialist countries," he said.
Apartheid was part of prison life as well. The racial hierarchy dictated how much food one received. Blacks also had to wear trousers that were too small for them. The rationale used by the apartheid government was that "all blacks [should be treated like] boys or girls."
Kathrada attributed the success of the anti-apartheid movement in large part to the boycott of South African investment by universities. These demonstrations led to government sanctions which gradually mitigated the severity of apartheid.
"Our aim was to force the enemy to the negotiating table because we knew that every struggle ... ended at the negotiating table," Kathrada said.
According to Kathrada, Mandela came out of prison after 26 years of being incarcerated, and the ANC was simultaneously gaining momentum.
"[Mandela was] without bitterness, without hatred, without anger and with a message of unity for building a new South Africa," Kathrada said.
In 1994, Kathrada was elected to South African Parliament where he served one term of five years.
During the question-and-answer session, Hogan discussed conflict management and how people respond to different situations.
"If people feel there's not going be a place for them in the future, they're going fight to the death," she said.
Hogan rounded out the evening with a talk about her experience as a white fighting against apartheid.
"Whites were kept very separate," she said. Additionally, Hogan said that whites occasionally chose to ignore the injustice blacks faced.
The liberation movement gave Hogan and others in the area a community where Hogan and her fellow white activists "became brothers and sisters, comrades ... insulated against the larger white community."
