University of Cambridge event asks what Palestinians can learn from South African anti-apartheid campaigner
‘Academic Research and Activism: Key lessons from South Africa and Palestine’ is the title of a talk at the Faculty of Education on June 17.
The event is a conversation between Professor Saleem Badat (University of the Free State, South Africa), Dr Grace Idahosa (University of Cambridge) and Professor Wesam Amer (University of Cambridge/Gaza University).
Moderated by Dr Maha Shuayb (Centre for Lebanese Studies and University of Cambridge) and Professor Yusuf Sayed (University of Cambridge), the occasion draws on a newly-published book 'Research and Activism: Ruth First and Activist Research', edited by Prof Badat and Vasu Reddy, a professor of sociology and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. The book speaks to contemporary challenges and builds on First’s rich legacy.
Ruth First was (4 May 1925-17 August 1982) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar who was assassinated in Mozambique, where she was working in exile, by a parcel bomb built by South African police.
First became a leading force in the 1950s protest era in which the government outlawed any movements that opposed their policies. She helped found the South African Congress of Democrats (COD), a white-only wing of the Congress Alliance, in 1953. The organisation was created in response to an appeal by the ANC (the African National Congress, whose president 1991-1997 was Nelson Mandela) who expressed the need for a group of white activists to endorse their policies.
Ruth First was the first white woman to be detained under the apartheid regime’s Ninety-Day Detention Law law. She subsequently went into exile in 1964 (in London). In 1978, four years before her assassination, she took up the post of director of research at the Centre of African Studies (Centro de Estudos Africanos) at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique.
“This seminar will discuss the interrelationships between research and activism and raise for discussion the role of academics and intellectuals in the academy and society – drawing on the experiences of Palestine and South Africa,” say the organisers.
Dr Wesam Amer, a visiting researcher and Cara/SRF fellow at the University of Cambridge, said: “Ruth First’s life offers profound lessons for Palestine today - rooted in her unwavering commitment to justice, her integration of scholarship and activism, and her resistance to colonial oppression.
“The link to Palestine lies in the parallels between apartheid South Africa and the Israeli occupation. Both involve systematic dispossession, segregation, and state violence against marginalised populations.
“First’s critical methods - especially her insistence that intellectuals must confront power, not merely analyse it - are deeply relevant in the Palestinian context, where academic and civil society voices are often criminalised or silenced.
“For Palestine today, Ruth First’s legacy underscores the urgency of activist research: using scholarship as a tool to document injustice, amplify marginalised voices, and support resistance. It reminds scholars and students that neutrality in the face of oppression is complicity - and that solidarity must be both intellectual and practical.”
The seminar is being organised by the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the University of Cambridge, the Centre for Lebanese Studies (CLS) and the Academic Action Network for Palestine (Act-for-Pal), details here.
