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Dakar Meeting
The Dakar Conference (also known as the Dakar Dialogue and the Dakar Initiative) was a historic conference between members of the Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa (IDASA) and the African National Congress (ANC). It was held in Dakar, Senegal between 9 and 12 July 1987. The conference discussed topics such as strategies for bringing fundamental change in South Africa, national unity, structures of the government and the future of the economy in a free South Africa. The IDASA delegation from South Africa, participated in the conference in their private capacity and would later be condemned by the South African government for meeting a banned organization. The future indirect result of the conference was South African government talks with Nelson Mandela and his eventual meeting with P. W. Botha in 1989. Background Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, a member of the opposition resigned from the Progressive Federal Party and the South African parliament in January 1986, ...
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Institute For Democratic Alternatives In South Africa
The Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa (IDASA) later known as the Institute for Democracy in South Africa was a South African-based think-tank organisation that was formed in 1986 by Frederik van Zyl Slabbert and Alex Boraine. Its initial focus from 1987 was creating an environment for white South Africans to talk to the banned liberation movement in-exile, the African National Congress (ANC) prior to its unbanning in 1990 by the President F. W. de Klerk. After the South African election in 1994, its focus was on ensuing the establishment of democratic institutions in the country, political transparency and good governance. Caught up in a funding crisis after the Great Recession, it closed in 2013. It is best known for the Dakar Conference (also known as the Dakar Dialogue or the Dakar Initiative), a historic conference between members of IDASA and the ANC. It was held in Dakar, Senegal, between 9 and 12 July 1987. The conference discussed topics such as s ...
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Abdou Diouf
Abdou Diouf ( ; Serer: ; born 7 September 1935)Biography at Socialist Party website
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is a Senegalese politician who was the second from 1981 to 2000. Diouf is notable both for coming to power by peaceful succession and leaving willingly after losing the 2000 presidential election to long-time opposition-leader . He was also the
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Sally Gross (activist)
Sally Gross (born Selwyn Gross; 22 August 1953 – 14 February 2014) was an anti-apartheid and intersex activist. A member of the African National Congress during the apartheid era, and the founder of Intersex South Africa, Gross acted as a mentor to intersex activists around the globe. Early life and diagnosis Gross was born on 22 August 1953 to a Jewish family, classified as male, and named Selwyn Gross. Although aware of her genital ambiguities, she was only formally diagnosed as having an intersex variation in 1993 at age 40.Intersex South Africa - Staff Members
Intersex South Africa, undated. Retrieved 18 March 2014
She was subsequently reclassified as female.


Spirituality, refugee status, and early works

Although born to a Jewish family, Gross was drawn to Cat ...
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Kader Asmal
Abdul Kader Asmal (8 October 1934 – 22 June 2011) was a South African politician. He was a professor of human rights at the University of the Western Cape, chairman of the council of the University of the North and vice-president of the African Association of International Law. He was married to Louise Parkinson and had two sons. He was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, received a doctorate Honoris Causa from Queen's University Belfast (1996) and was a laureate of the 2000 Stockholm Water Prize. Early life Born in 1934, Asmal grew up in Stanger, KwaZulu-Natal. He was the son of an Indian shopkeeper and one of seven children. When he was a schoolboy, he met Chief Albert Luthuli, who inspired him towards human rights. Asmal's political development first began in 1952 with the Defiance Campaign, when he was asked to become the secretary of the local rate payers' association. That exposed him to the local Indian community's efforts at dealing ...
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Maison Des Esclaves
The House of Slaves (''Maison des Esclaves'') and its Door of No Return is a museum and memorial to the victims of the Atlantic slave trade on Gorée Island, 3 km off the coast of the city of Dakar, Senegal. Its museum, which was opened in 1962 and curated until Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye's death in 2009, is said to memorialise the final exit point of the slaves from Africa. While historians differ on how many African slaves were actually held in this building, as well as the relative importance of Gorée Island as a point on the Atlantic slave trade,"Tiny island weathers storm of controversy"
. CNN Interactive, Andy Walton. 2005. Note: the link is to a reprint on the Historian's discussion list that was a prime source for the article's quotes.
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Gorée Island
(; "Gorée Island"; ) is one of the 19 (i.e. districts) of the city of Dakar, Senegal. It is an island located at sea from the main harbour of Dakar (), famous as a destination for people interested in the Atlantic slave trade. Its population as of the 2013 census was 1,680 inhabitants, giving a density of , which is only half the average density of the city of Dakar. Gorée is both the smallest and the least populated of the 19 of Dakar. Other important centres for the slave trade from Senegal were further north, at Saint-Louis, Senegal, or to the south in the Gambia, at the mouths of major rivers for trade.''Les Guides Bleus: Afrique de l'Ouest'' (1958 ed.), p. 123 It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was one of the first 12 locations in the world to be designated as such in 1978. The name is a corruption of its original Dutch name Goeree, named after the Dutch island of Goeree. The island was also known as Palma, or in Portuguese. History and slave trade Gorée ...
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Freedom Charter
The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies: the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress. It is characterised by its opening demand, "The People Shall Govern!" History After about a decade of multi-faceted resistance to white minority rule, and in the wake of the Defiance Campaign of 1952, the work to create the Freedom Charter was in part a response to an increasingly repressive government which was bent on stamping out extra-parliamentary dissent. In 1955, the ANC sent out 50,000 volunteers into townships and the countryside to collect "freedom demands" from the people of South Africa.This system was designed to give all South Africans equal rights. Demands such as "Land to be given to all landless people", "Living wages and shorter hours of work", "Free and compulsory education, irrespec ...
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Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Patagonian Afrikaans, Patagonian dialect. It evolved from the Dutch language, Dutch vernacular of South Holland (Hollandic dialect) spoken by the free Burghers, predominantly Dutch settlers and slavery in South Africa#Dutch rule, enslaved population of the Dutch Cape Colony, where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the 17th and 18th centuries. Although Afrikaans has adopted words from other languages including German language, German, Malay language, Malay and Khoisan languages, an estimated 90 to 95% of the vocabulary of Afrikaans is of Dutch origin. Differences between Afrikaans and Dutch often lie in the more analytic language, analytic Morphology (linguistics), morphology and grammar of Afrikaans, and differ ...
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Bill Of Rights
A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and private citizens. Bills of rights may be '' entrenched'' or ''unentrenched''. An entrenched bill of rights cannot be amended or repealed by a country's legislature through regular procedure, instead requiring a supermajority or referendum; often it is part of a country's constitution, and therefore subject to special procedures applicable to constitutional amendments. History The history of legal charters asserting certain rights for particular groups goes back to the Middle Ages and earlier. An example is Magna Carta, an English legal charter agreed between the King and his barons in 1215. In the early modern period, there was renewed interest in Magna Carta. English common law judge Sir Edward Coke revived the idea of rights based on ci ...
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Pluralism (political Theory)
Classical pluralism is the view that politics and decision-making are located mostly in the framework of government but that many non-governmental groups use their resources to exert influence. The central question for classical pluralism is how Power (social and political), power and influence are distributed in a political process. Groups of individuals try to maximize their interests. Lines of conflict are multiple and shifting as power is a continuous bargaining process between competing groups. There may be inequalities but they tend to be distributed and evened out by the various forms and distributions of resources throughout a population. Any change under this view will be slow and incremental, as groups have different interests and may act as "veto groups" to destroy legislation. The existence of diverse and competing interests is the basis for a democratic equilibrium, and is crucial for the obtaining of goals by individuals. A polyarchy—a situation of open competition ...
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London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a tidal estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre, the City of London, was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has been the centuries-long host of Government of the United Kingdom, the national government and Parliament of the United Kingdom, parliament. London grew rapidly 19th-century London, in the 19th century, becoming the world's List of largest cities throughout history, largest city at the time. Since the 19th cen ...
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Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer to the Scandinavian Peninsula (which excludes Denmark but includes a part of northern Finland). In English usage, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym for Nordic countries. Iceland and the Faroe Islands are sometimes included in Scandinavia for their Ethnolinguistics, ethnolinguistic relations with Sweden, Norway and Denmark. While Finland differs from other Nordic countries in this respect, some authors call it Scandinavian due to its economic and cultural similarities. The geography of the region is varied, from the Norwegian fjords in the west and Scandinavian mountains covering parts of Norway and Sweden, to the low and flat areas of Denmark in the south, as well as archipelagos and lakes in the east. Most of the population ...
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