Boesak Unauthorised

Dennis Cruywagen

• Publisher: African Perspectives Publishing
• Year: 2026
• eBook ISBN:
  9781037095344
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Index: Social Sciences

If the government thought that by killing Biko it would create a leadership lacuna, it was wrong. Seriously wrong because into this void stepped a priest who shared Biko's passion for freedom from oppression. That man was Allan Aubrey Boesak, a reverend or "dominee" in the Dutch Reformed Mission Church. Boesak's church was one of the three daughter churches spawned by the white Dutch Reformed Church to serve "coloureds, Indians and Africans." They were separate from the mother church and not equal to It. The timing in South Africa was right for the emergence of a preacher/priest/ politician like Allan Boesak. With his gifted voice, evocative speeches, Dr Boesak was our Martin Luther King. His speech at the launch of the United Democratic Front in 1983 is on the same agenda-setting, galvanising, defining-the-future level as that of Dr King's I have a Dream speech. He inspired with evocative words and visions of a non-racial, democratic country. As was the case with the American civil rights leader (Dr King), the state wanted to discredit him and thereby seriously damage the march to freedom in South Africa. There was an opportunity to damage and sully his reputation in 1985. The security police leaked information and recordings of his affair with South African Council of Churches worker Di Scott. He did not survive the next one: the exposure of his affair with television personality Elna Botha. The affair was the beginning of the fall of Allan Boesak, the end of his marriage and a journey to prison. It was an ignominious end. The story of Allan Boesak is intriguing. The history of South Africa is incomplete without the narrative of Allan Boesak's role.

Table of contents

• Front cover
• Title page
• Dedication
• Also by Dennis Cruywagen
• Copyright
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 THE FIRST SERMON
• 2 THE VOW
• 3 THE ‘COLOUREDS’ ARE RESTLESS
• 4 FAITH AS RESISTANCE
• 5 REMADE
• 6 BIKO
• 7 LET MY PEOPLE GO
• 8 THE UDF
• 9 REVENGE OF THE “BIG CROCODILE”
• 10 THE POLLSMOOR MARCH
• 11 THE FALL
• 12 THE “HIGH LIFE”
• 13 A TIME FOR JAIL
• 14 PRISONER 200527398
• 15 WALLS CLOSING IN
• 16 SEDUCED BY MANDELA
• 17 REFLECTIONS
• Back cover