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Apartheid and its resistance come to life in this memoir making it a vital historical document of its time and for our own.
In 1969, while a student in South Africa, John Schlapobersky was arrested for opposing apartheid and tortured, detained and eventually deported. Interrogated through sleep deprivation, he later wrote secretly in solitary confinement about the struggle for survival.
Those writings inform this exquisitely written book in which the author reflects on the singing of the condemned prisoners, the poetry, songs and texts that saw him through his ordeal, and its impact. This sense of hope through which he transformed his life guides his continuing work as a psychotherapist and his focus on the rehabilitation of others.
"[T]hetale of an ordinary young man swept one day from his life into hell, testimony to the wickedness a political system let loose in its agents and, above all, an intimate account of how a man became a healer."-Jonny Steinberg, Oxford University
From the introduction:
I was supposed to be a man by the time I turned 21, by anyone's reckoning. By the apartheid regime's reckoning, I was also old enough to be tortured. Looking back, I can recognize the boy I was. The eldest of my grandchildren is now approaching this age, and I would never want to see her or the others - or indeed anyone else - having to face any such ordeal. At the time my home was in Johannesburg, only some thirty miles from Pretoria, where I was thrown into a world that few would believe existed, populated by creatures from the darkest places, creatures of the night, some in uniform. I was there for fifty-five days, and never went home again.
List of contents
Foreword Albie Sachs Prologue
Introduction The Days Arrest: Day 1: Friday 13 June
Interrogation I: Swanepoel: Compol Building
Solitary Confinement: The Hanging Jail
Interrogation II: Johan Coetzee
Signing the Statement and Negotiating Release
Release: Day 55: Wednesday 6th August
Epilogue Afterword: Memory and Testimony
Acknowledgements
Appendix 1: Arrest Warrant 13/06/1969
Appendix 2: The Sword and the Ploughshare: The Terrorism Act and the Bill of Rights
Appendix 3: Principles for the Political Applications of Psychotherapy
References
Index
About the author
John R. Schlapobersky is a leading psychotherapist and author based in London. He is a training analyst at the Institute of Group Analysis and was a Founding Trustee of Freedom from Torture in 1985. Publications include From The Couch To The Circle: Group-Analytic Psychotherapy In Practice (Routledge, 2016), which won the American Group Psychotherapy Association’s Alonso Award in 2017 and is in translation to other language editions.
Summary
Whilst a student in South Africa, John Schlapobersky was arrested for opposing apartheid and tortured, detained and deported. In this volume, apartheid and its resistance come to life in personal stories that make this a vital historical document - one of its time and one for our own.
