Review – Raymond Suttner's Recovering Democracy in South Africa [analysis]

J. BROOKS SPECTOR has read political philosopher Raymond Suttner’s latest book, Recovering Democracy in South Africa, and contemplates the author’s call to arms to reclaim the nation’s democratic processes from those who would traduce its proud antecedents of struggle.
Over the years, Raymond Suttner has become a social and political conscience for the heirs of the liberation struggle. Increasingly, this has made him into a kind of class scold, warning of things others do not – or chose not to – see just yet. That role seems to have gradually come Suttner’s way after his long service in the liberation struggle on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC) in underground activities, tasks interrupted by periods of imprisonment and interrogation. Post-1994, he has engaged in steady writing, teaching and lecturing, as well as periods as an MP and as South Africa’s ambassador to Sweden on behalf of the new government.
In this, his newest book – following earlier volumes, Inside Apartheid’s Prison and The ANC Underground – Suttner’s Recovering Democracy in South Africa brings together a collection of his short writing published over the past decade, albeit mostly in the past several years. Most of these appeared on the Polity…

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