| Intro | South African journalist and activist |
| Is | Journalist |
| From | South Africa |
| Type | Journalism |
| Gender | male |
| Birth |
1941, Johannesburg, City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Gauteng, South Africa |
| Age | 80 years |
Paul Trewhela (born 1941), South African journalist and political prisoner.
Biography
Trewhela was born in Johannesburg in 1941, educated at Michaelhouse in KwaZulu-Natal.
Trewhela worked in underground journalism with Ruth First and edited the underground journal of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Freedom Fighter, during the Rivonia Trial. He was a political prisoner in Pretoria and the Johannesburg Fort as a member of the South African Communist Party in 1964 – 1967, separating from the SACP while in prison. In exile in Britain he was co-editor with the late Baruch Hirson of Searchlight South Africa, which was banned in South Africa.
In regard to his ideology he has stated, “I was a Trotskyist, and, yes, a ‘committed Marxist’ through to the end of working on Searchlight South Africa. But I’m not a Marxist any longer. Marx’s conception of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ gave a licence to totalitarian dictators of all kinds, and Marxism’s economic determinism and alleged ‘scientific’ philosophy are way off beam. I’m much more aware than before how fragile are the little shoots of civil society, and how they need nurturing, and how easily they are crushed by very ideological people who claim to have a universal panacea, usually violent. They’re the dangerous people in southern Africa, as Robert Mugabe and his regime have shown.”
Honours
In 2007 he received the St Michael Award from his alma-mater, Michaelhouse
Publications
- “Chapter 8 The Problem of Communism in Southern Africa”. Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO. Jacana Media. 2009. ISBN 978-1-77009-776-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO. Jacana Media. 2009. ISBN 978-1-77009-776-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- “Swapo and the churches: an international scandal” (PDF). Searchlight South Africa. 2 (3): 65–88. 1991. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 October 2014.
- Yengeni, Schreiner and the Ethics of the ANC. 2008.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)