As corruption, arrogance and exclusion threaten hard-won freedoms, a new crop of books — on universities, satire, music — reminds us that democracy is not inherited but defended through memory and dissent.
Institutional memory. Institutional integrity. Institutional trust.
These are the words that come to mind when I reflect on a clutch of significant books that landed on my desk as 2025 drew to a close.
The festive lull arrives each year with its own quiet conspiracy: permission to pause. Beyond the ritual of closure lies a gentle invitation to withdraw, to read not for quotes or deadlines but for meaning. It is a rare right royal retreat from alarm clocks and the screech of breaking news, interrupted only by the hadeda swooping over the rolling green hills surrounding GreenGold Lilliesleaf House.
Journalism thrives on immediacy — deadlines, breaking news, the tyranny of the now. Yet the so-called “silly season” offered something precious: time to read deeply. Books wait patiently. They do not shout; they invite.
The books under review speak to epic individual and institutional contributions that helped reshape South Africa’s political, cultural and intellectual landscape — from the censorship-driven years of apartheid to the contested freedoms of democracy.
Closest to home is University of Durban-Westville 1961–2003: Undoing Apartheid, Building a Non-Racial Culture (UKZN Press), edited by Saleem Badat and Goolam Vahed. Meticulously researched across 510 pages, the long-gestating work chronicles 42 turbulent years of one of South Africa’s most politically charged campuses.
UD-W, once described as the “site of struggle”, was born out of apartheid’s segregationist education system. Relocated from Salisbury Island to Westville in 1971 to serve Indian students, it was initially presented as a symbol of “separate progress”.
Instead, it became a crucible of resistance. By the late 1970s, students embraced “education under protest”, turning the campus into a hub of political consciousness, worker solidarity and defiance of apartheid curricula.
Figures such as Saths Cooper, who was later the last vice-chancellor before the merger that created UKZN, and activists like Strini Moodley linked campus struggles to Black Consciousness, repurposing segregation into dissent.
The book also records the critical transition from Afrikaner leadership to progressive academic stewardship in the 1990s, including the tenure of vice-chancellor Professor Jairam Reddy. UD-W’s legacy endures as a paradox: an institution created to divide, remembered for courage, resistance and transformation.
Cartooning, too, has long been integral to South Africa’s political conversation. Zapiro: What Else Could Go Wrong? (Jacana), a collection of Jonathan Shapiro’s work for Daily Maverick, reaffirms his position as one of the country’s most incisive visual commentators.
Across 120 pages, Zapiro wields satire like a scalpel. His uncluttered lines and instantly recognisable caricatures cut through hypocrisy, abuse of power and political arrogance — from the Union Buildings to the White House.
Provocative and often controversial, his cartoons distil complex debates into single frames that both entertain and unsettle. In a democracy that remains fragile and contested, Zapiro’s work endures as a visual archive of dissent, laughter sharpened into critique.
The final pages are especially arresting. Marking World News Day in 2025, Zapiro turns his attention to attacks on journalists worldwide — from Gaza, where more than 270 journalists were killed after 7 October 2023, to other war-torn zones where truth itself is under siege.
On the cultural front, Johnny Clegg: Critical Reflections on His Music and Influence (Wits University Press), edited by Michael Drewett and Lucilla Spini, is a deeply researched tribute to an extraordinary artist. Born in England in 1953 and raised in South Africa, Clegg, who died in 2019 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, was far more than a performer.
Anthropologist, songwriter and cultural bridge-builder, Clegg fused Zulu traditions with global popular music, defying apartheid’s racial boundaries. Contributions from academics, musicians and collaborators, including co-founder and singer Sipho Mchunu of Juluka and Savuka, explore Clegg’s legacy as both scholar and activist.
Few moments capture the legacy more powerfully than Asimbonanga, penned in 1987 at the height of apartheid censorship.
By naming Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, the song carried the anti-apartheid struggle to international audiences, becoming an anthem of resistance.
Its transformation into a moment of celebration — when Mandela famously joined Clegg on stage — sealed its place as a living symbol of reconciliation and the enduring political power of music.
Taken together, the books form a mosaic of institutional memory and cultural resistance. They remind us that democracy is not self-sustaining. It is archived in classrooms and cartoons, in songs and satire, in scholarship and storytelling.
At a time when corruption, arrogance and new forms of exclusion threaten to hollow out hard-won freedoms, the works stand as acts of remembrance — and quiet resistance.
From the University of Durban-Westville’s struggle years to Zapiro’s scalpel-sharp satire and Johnny Clegg’s musical defiance, this reading reminds us that institutions, like democracy, survive only through memory, courage and critique and still matter in a fragile democracy.
Marlan Padayachee, formerly a political, diplomatic, and foreign correspondent, is a freelance journalist, photographer, and researcher.