A politics of intellectual engagement: Six key debates

Abstract

Abstract In this essay I recover the substance of the dynamics surrounding six key debates that Neville Alexander, political activist and scholar, consciously entered into in the course of his 50-year engagement as a public intellectual. The aim of this exercise is two-fold: It is, in the first instance, about historical redress. Dominant historiographical accounts of the past 50 years have consistently marginalised the contributions of important individuals and organisations outside the Congress Alliance. What a recounting of the debates shows is how significantly individuals and organisations outside of the Congress movement have come to influence and shape public discourse, and the nature of the country's political developments. The second reason for recovering the debates is to offer, for engagement and critique (in terms of the approach Alexander takes to working with political difference), a model of what committed intellectualism might mean for South Africa. The article attempts to show how Alexand...