KADER ASMAL, politics in my blood, a memoir

313pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Reprint, Johannesburg, (2011) 2011

Kader Asmal (1934-2011) was Professor of Human Rights at the University of the Western Cape, Chairman of the council of the University of the North, Vice-president of the African Association of International Law and Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology.

In 1959, after qualifying as a teacher in South Africa, Asmal moved to London, enrolled at the London School of Economics, and was instrumental in starting the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. He qualified as a barrister and was a lecturer in law at Trinity College Dublin for 27 years. In 1990 Asmal returned to South Africa, was elected to the ANC's National Executive Committee and served as a member of the negotiating team of the ANC at the Multiparty Negotiating Forum. In May 1994 he was elected to the National Assembly and joined President Nelson Mandela's Cabinet as Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry. In 1999 he was promoted to Minister of Higher Education under President Thabo Mbeki. He left government in 2004 and resigned from Parliament in 2008 in protest against the ANC's disbanding of the elite Scorpions anti-crime unit.