Dr Neil Hudson Aggett was found hanging from the bars of his prison cell in 1982, after spending 70 days in detention. He was only 28.
Dr Neil Hudson Aggett was found hanging from the bars of his prison cell in 1982, after spending 70 days in detention. He was only 28.
Death of an Idealist is the fully referenced biography of the 51st person and first white detainee to die in custody during Apartheid.
Aggett had dedicated his life to promoting a just and fair society. He was a medical doctor who also worked as a part-time, unpaid trade union organiser.
His death provoked a huge outcry.
He was pushed to suicide by security police after he was wrongly accused of being an ANC collaborator. His funeral was attended by thousands of black workers, who followed his coffin through the streets of Johannesburg. Author and novelist, Beverley Naidoo, delves into the life of this formidable man and pays tribute to him through an in-depth biography with interviews, diary entries, newspaper clippings and photographs.
Little has been written about white anti-Apartheid activists who worked in the emerging black and non-racial trade union movements. Death of an Idealist is a diligent and enthralling story, to which Naidoo, Aggett's cousin, gives warmth and intimacy even though she did not know Aggett personally.
She explores the transformation of a high-achieving, sports-loving schoolboy, who attended Kingswood College, to a non-materialistic, quiet and intense man who died too young. She focuses on the years leading up to his detention, the week of interrogation and the inquest into his death.
George Bizos, Nelson Mandela’s lawyer and friend, who led the Aggett’s legal team, wrote the book's foreword.
Many, including politician Dr Mamphela Ramphele, have praised the book.
“This is a beautifully written book that weaves a rich tapestry of the interplay between the personal, professional and political. Our country is seriously in need of a dose of idealism to remind [us]of the passions and energy that drove us to confront and subdue a brutal regime,” she wrote.
“Mercifully free of liberation movement martyrology, Death of an Idealist makes a serious effort to engage with Aggett the man,” reads a review by the Mail & Guardian.
Naidoo gave us a gift by turning Aggett's story into a beautifully written biography.
The Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) was established in 2012, at the Rhodes University Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER).
The naming ceremony of NALSU and the Neil Aggett House takes place on Friday 4 April.
My feeling was that I saw the changes in South Africa were necessary, and it was important that I contribute to these changes. I felt that the most positive area where I could be effective was in the trade unions, because here you were actually changing concrete conditions of existence and not just talking rhetorical politics.
