News & Events

Read the column of ASC director Ton Dietz in the latest (December) issue of OneWorld Magazine. It's about the importance to keep in touch with African scientists in countries where working as a scientist is dangerous.

If you missed our commemorative event to honour Nelson Mandela at the African Studies Centre on Wednesday 11 December, have a look at the video recording and the photos, read the presentations of the speakers and reflect on the memories of Mandela that people from the public shared with us. The event was organized by the African Studies Centre and ZAM Magazine.

Nelson Mandela was the greatest statesman that Africa has produced. His reputation is based above all on the enormous dignity and magnanimity that he showed after he was released from prison, after 27 years behind bars, in 1990. He was able to reassure his countrymen and the wider world that looked on, entranced, there would be no race war in South Africa, as many people had feared. Among South Africans black and white, Mandela’s achievement endured throughout the years after he had stepped down as president in 1999, even though his dream of a rainbow nation began to look tattered. Worldwide, Mandela has become a revered figure in the mode of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.