In S. Africa, a new struggle
Five years ago, Stanford Makashule Gana quit the African National Congress, the storied anti-apartheid movement of Nelson Mandela that has come to dominate politics and government in South Africa.
It was a brave move. But then the 18-year-old college student did something even bolder for a poor, black villager: He joined the Democratic Alliance, the small but vociferous opposition often dismissed as the "white party."
"Coconut," he vividly recalls party comrades calling him. "Sellout." His family feared that the decision could affect his future, since friends of the ANC run every public agency and many companies. They were also hurt. Gana's family, after all, had expected him to carry forward the ANC torch his parents' generation held in the 1980s-era struggle against white minority rule.
But Gana hasn't wavered.
Read entire article at Baltimore Sun
It was a brave move. But then the 18-year-old college student did something even bolder for a poor, black villager: He joined the Democratic Alliance, the small but vociferous opposition often dismissed as the "white party."
"Coconut," he vividly recalls party comrades calling him. "Sellout." His family feared that the decision could affect his future, since friends of the ANC run every public agency and many companies. They were also hurt. Gana's family, after all, had expected him to carry forward the ANC torch his parents' generation held in the 1980s-era struggle against white minority rule.
But Gana hasn't wavered.