Art History and Class Struggle by Louise Asmal

Asmal was a member of both the London and Dublin bars and obtained two master's degrees during this time. After qualifying in Britain and Ireland as a barrister, Asmal lectured at Trinity College in law. He graduated from the London School of Economics four years later. In 1959 he went abroad to study law at London school of Economics.

While teaching, Asmal obtained a BA degree through the University of South Africa (Unisa). Whilst studying for his teacher's diploma in Durban in 1953, he strengthened his ties with Luthuli, his mentor, who had been banned and restricted to Groutville, near Stanger. He responded by leading the school stay-at-home.Īsmal met African National Congress (ANC) President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Chief Albert Luthuli while still at school. A significant turning point for Asmal in the 1950s Defiance Campaign era came as a politicized Matric pupil, when he saw the Campaign's leaders marching in prison uniforms through the dusty streets of Stanger. He gradually saw a link between this tragedy in European history and his own life under apartheid.

A transformative moment in his political understanding, according to Asmal, occurred when footage of Nazi concentration camp victims was shown to him, and he decided on a career in law in order to oppose such oppressive mentality. Like the vast majority of South Africans then, his first brush with racism was as a teenager when a White shop-owner barred him from buying a newspaper. Although not overtly political, his parents encouraged lively debate in the family of 10.Ī consistent concern for human justice stems from Asmal’s childhood. His mother was a home-maker while his father was a shopkeeper, a shop assistant and unemployed respectively. Young Asmal was raised in a vibrant, lower middle-class family. Kader Abdul Asmal was born on 8th of October in 1934, in the small rural town of Stanger, KwaZulu Natal (then Natal).

Art History and Class Struggle by Louise Asmal