A decade into its hard-won democracy, South Africa and its ruling party, the ANC, have been through turbulent times. Confrontation between Thabo Mbeki, and his then deputy, Jacob Zuma; the dismissal of Zuma as Deputy; Zuma’s defeat of Mbeki in ANC presidential elections and the recall of Mbeki as South African president are events that left many ANC cadres politically and emotionally aghast. Were these events the result of personal enmity? Was it the beginning of the break-up of the broad church that the ANC had become to unite all forces in the struggle against apartheid? Or did the roots lie in the global dynamic that allowed South Africa its freedom as the Cold War cooled? Written in an anecdotal and cinematic style, Songs and Secrets explores these questions through the viewfinder of a former high-ranking member of the ANC’s secret intelligence wing. It follows the author into the ANC’s military camps in Angola; to Moscow for spycraft training; to the underground in Botswana and into leadership positions in the administration of the new government. Gilder’s frank memoir explores the personal, political, psychological and historical realities that gave birth to the new South Africa, in particular the oft-ignored conditions in which the ANC government tried to turn apartheid around.
