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The List
Although conceived and birthed well before South Africa's governing party - the ANC's - December 2017 elective conference and the changes of the guard that ensued, 'The List' imagines a ‘New Dawn’ for South Africa in the closing years of the 2010s. But is it dawn or dusk?Rumours have abounded since the early days of South African democracy, of a list given to Nelson Mandela by apartheid securocrats of their agents infiltrated into the upper echelons of the ANC during the struggle years.'The List' tells the story of a group of veterans of MK, of ANC intelligence and of the post-apartheid intelligence service, who are formed into a secret task team by the newly elected president to investigate the possibility of such remnants of apartheid security threatening to obstruct the radical changes that he and his team are planning.The story follows these veterans and their nemeses through the struggle years, exile, the MK camps and into the years of democracy and hope, disillusion and hope again. It observes while the struggle veterans painstakingly attempt to pick through the detritus of the old regime in the new, but just as the moment of optimism begins to blossom, the task team uncovers a ghastly betrayal.Is it too late to save the president and the country?
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About the author
Barry Gilder
6 books24 followersBarry Gilder was born in South Africa in 1950. He went into exile in 1976, composed and sang struggle songs at anti-apartheid events in Europe and elsewhere, underwent military and intelligence training with the ANC, served in the ANC’s intelligence structures until his return to South Africa in 1991.
He served the democratic government as deputy head of the South African Secret Service, as deputy head of the National Intelligence Agency, as director-general of the department of home affairs and as South Africa’s coordinator fir intelligence until his retirement in 2007. From 2007 he worked on his book 'Songs and Secrets: South Africa from Liberation to Governance' in which he describes his experience of the South African liberation struggle and the challenges of post-apartheid governance. The book was published in 2012 by Jacana Media in Southern Africa and Hurst Publishers internationally.
In 2010 he helped establish the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, a policy think tank set up by former senior leaders in the democratic government. He currently serves as Director Operations at the Institute.
Barry recently graduated with a Master of Arts in Creative Writing (with distinction) from the University of the Witwatersrand. HIs new novel, 'The List', was published by Jacana Media in September 2018.
He served the democratic government as deputy head of the South African Secret Service, as deputy head of the National Intelligence Agency, as director-general of the department of home affairs and as South Africa’s coordinator fir intelligence until his retirement in 2007. From 2007 he worked on his book 'Songs and Secrets: South Africa from Liberation to Governance' in which he describes his experience of the South African liberation struggle and the challenges of post-apartheid governance. The book was published in 2012 by Jacana Media in Southern Africa and Hurst Publishers internationally.
In 2010 he helped establish the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, a policy think tank set up by former senior leaders in the democratic government. He currently serves as Director Operations at the Institute.
Barry recently graduated with a Master of Arts in Creative Writing (with distinction) from the University of the Witwatersrand. HIs new novel, 'The List', was published by Jacana Media in September 2018.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 18, 2018
If anyone is going to write a novel based on the South African security services during apartheid and since the first democratic elections in 1994, Barry Gilder is a very good candidate. He spent years working for the ANC Intelligence services, and then in the amalgamated intelligence service of the newly-elected Government of National Unity under President Mandela. This is a man who knows what he is talking about. And he is very clear in his Author’s Note: “This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.”
This is true. The whole story is based on a premise, a rumour which, as far as I am aware has never been proved. It is said that President Nelson Mandela was given a list, by the National Intelligence Service (the South African equivalent of MI5) naming all the apartheid agents in the ANC. It is also alleged that President Mandela was so magnanimous that he did nothing with the list, if it existed. If this is true, it would be for the very good reason that the source was tainted and that none of the information could be trusted. The list, if it exists, would have been written with the intention of sowing distrust and destroying reputations.
It is also true that the “Sunset Clauses” left dedicated supporters of apartheid in post, and in roles where they could do damage. There is no doubt in my mind, as a long-standing anti-apartheid campaigner who has visited South African many times since the ANC Solidarity Conference in 1993, that this has been happening. One of the key chapters in the book, Chapter 25, describes Mandela arriving at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg to acknowledge the ANC Victory in the first democratic election in South African history. He talked about the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)and was quite clear that no-one could participate in the Government of National Unity if they were opposed to that plan. I remember this very well. I was there. It was a very sobering moment. That very evening, I had been arguing with ANC friends that they would have to defend the RDP because it was all that they had got, and that it would be attacked from the very outset. It was. The attack came from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the RDP was watered down to the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) plan, and that also proved too radical.
So, the premise of this book is that old, retired, loyal ANC members from the Intelligence Services are asked to investigate the existence of the List, and come across some terrifying information about how the tentacles of the apartheid state have reached into the new democratic regime.
The story is carried along by the sympathetic characters that we meet and, indeed, it is supposed to be written by Jerry Whitehead, an ANC intelligence officer who rose to be Deputy Director General of the post-apartheid intelligence service. I am tempted to imagine this Jerry Whitehead as the Barry Gilder character, if only for his intimate knowledge of Kilburn, but the caveats of the author, quoted above, have to be born in mind. It would be wrong to seek to identify each character with a real person, and given the denouement we can only hope that this is not the case.
This is a story that will have chills running up and down your spine. Gilder shows how easy it is to entrap someone, to corrupt them. There is a chilling scene where Gilder shows the apartheid security police relaxing at a braai (barbecue) and I know that the attitudes of white South African right-wings males have not changed. I have sat through braais like that. Gilder shows that the British security police were keeping a watchful eye, both to ensure that nothing untoward happened and to collaborate with their anti-communist allies in the South African security. He shows that agents in the National Intelligence Service were planning for change because it was obvious that apartheid was unsustainable. The system had to go but white privilege had to be maintained. This is what is at the heart of the planning by Otto Becker, in the book. And I am sure that it was at the heart of the planning of many white South African bureaucrats in the years of transition from the mid-1980s to the years following the 1994 elections.
Whilst this is a novel, it dissects a frightening truth. This is a truly disturbing story.
I have one quibble. Salusbury Road in Kilburn is not mis-spelled. It is not named after Salisbury, but rather after the Salusbury family, Welsh gentry who were cousins by marriage of Elizabeth Tudor. Katheryn, Lady Salusbury, was the daughter of Sir Roland Velville, the only illegitimate child of Henry VII. She was the richest heiress in Wales and her money was used to acquire lands in, I believe, Kilburn. This matters because it is the kind of mistake that an intelligence officer should not make. The assumption about the mis-spelling however is that of Jerry Whitehead not Barry Gilder.
This is an extraordinary book, a revelation. Please God, do not let it come true.
This is true. The whole story is based on a premise, a rumour which, as far as I am aware has never been proved. It is said that President Nelson Mandela was given a list, by the National Intelligence Service (the South African equivalent of MI5) naming all the apartheid agents in the ANC. It is also alleged that President Mandela was so magnanimous that he did nothing with the list, if it existed. If this is true, it would be for the very good reason that the source was tainted and that none of the information could be trusted. The list, if it exists, would have been written with the intention of sowing distrust and destroying reputations.
It is also true that the “Sunset Clauses” left dedicated supporters of apartheid in post, and in roles where they could do damage. There is no doubt in my mind, as a long-standing anti-apartheid campaigner who has visited South African many times since the ANC Solidarity Conference in 1993, that this has been happening. One of the key chapters in the book, Chapter 25, describes Mandela arriving at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg to acknowledge the ANC Victory in the first democratic election in South African history. He talked about the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)and was quite clear that no-one could participate in the Government of National Unity if they were opposed to that plan. I remember this very well. I was there. It was a very sobering moment. That very evening, I had been arguing with ANC friends that they would have to defend the RDP because it was all that they had got, and that it would be attacked from the very outset. It was. The attack came from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the RDP was watered down to the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) plan, and that also proved too radical.
So, the premise of this book is that old, retired, loyal ANC members from the Intelligence Services are asked to investigate the existence of the List, and come across some terrifying information about how the tentacles of the apartheid state have reached into the new democratic regime.
The story is carried along by the sympathetic characters that we meet and, indeed, it is supposed to be written by Jerry Whitehead, an ANC intelligence officer who rose to be Deputy Director General of the post-apartheid intelligence service. I am tempted to imagine this Jerry Whitehead as the Barry Gilder character, if only for his intimate knowledge of Kilburn, but the caveats of the author, quoted above, have to be born in mind. It would be wrong to seek to identify each character with a real person, and given the denouement we can only hope that this is not the case.
This is a story that will have chills running up and down your spine. Gilder shows how easy it is to entrap someone, to corrupt them. There is a chilling scene where Gilder shows the apartheid security police relaxing at a braai (barbecue) and I know that the attitudes of white South African right-wings males have not changed. I have sat through braais like that. Gilder shows that the British security police were keeping a watchful eye, both to ensure that nothing untoward happened and to collaborate with their anti-communist allies in the South African security. He shows that agents in the National Intelligence Service were planning for change because it was obvious that apartheid was unsustainable. The system had to go but white privilege had to be maintained. This is what is at the heart of the planning by Otto Becker, in the book. And I am sure that it was at the heart of the planning of many white South African bureaucrats in the years of transition from the mid-1980s to the years following the 1994 elections.
Whilst this is a novel, it dissects a frightening truth. This is a truly disturbing story.
I have one quibble. Salusbury Road in Kilburn is not mis-spelled. It is not named after Salisbury, but rather after the Salusbury family, Welsh gentry who were cousins by marriage of Elizabeth Tudor. Katheryn, Lady Salusbury, was the daughter of Sir Roland Velville, the only illegitimate child of Henry VII. She was the richest heiress in Wales and her money was used to acquire lands in, I believe, Kilburn. This matters because it is the kind of mistake that an intelligence officer should not make. The assumption about the mis-spelling however is that of Jerry Whitehead not Barry Gilder.
This is an extraordinary book, a revelation. Please God, do not let it come true.
October 6, 2018
"The List" is a contemporary historical novel. Barry Gilder draws on years of experience as a veteran of ANC intelligence operations to create readable and suspenseful political fiction.
The novel spans 40 years and the reader is treated to an initiated view of life on the edge in SA in the 1980s and in the ANC camps in exile. The return in the 1990s, attempts to develop a new society, disillusionment, are all portrayed, seen through the eyes of a fictional ANC operative.
I was at a book launch of "The List" in Cape Town about 10 days ago, where some of the discussion focused on how much of the book is based on truth; whether characters were real people, and so on. However, it is unusual that one gets direct answers to such questions in a historical novel.
What is more likely is that the events and people that feature in a historical novel might have existed, that their fate/adventures are likely. I refer to a broader, rather than a specific, truth.
Certainly Gilder is familiar with his subject matter. He finished writing in mid-2016, before the local government elections in which the ANC lost control of several of South Africa's key cities. It was at the publisher before the ANC conference that elected a new president for the governing party, a president who declared his determination to clear up the corruption and financial waste of resources. Gilder predicts both of these events in his novel.
We can but hope that another prediction, which comes in the very first pages, is inaccurate, namely the assassination in parliament of the recently elected president.
To those of us who love South Africa, who like whodunits, and are interested in South Africa's history in the past 40 or 50 years, I warmly recommend Barry Gilder's"The List".
The novel spans 40 years and the reader is treated to an initiated view of life on the edge in SA in the 1980s and in the ANC camps in exile. The return in the 1990s, attempts to develop a new society, disillusionment, are all portrayed, seen through the eyes of a fictional ANC operative.
I was at a book launch of "The List" in Cape Town about 10 days ago, where some of the discussion focused on how much of the book is based on truth; whether characters were real people, and so on. However, it is unusual that one gets direct answers to such questions in a historical novel.
What is more likely is that the events and people that feature in a historical novel might have existed, that their fate/adventures are likely. I refer to a broader, rather than a specific, truth.
Certainly Gilder is familiar with his subject matter. He finished writing in mid-2016, before the local government elections in which the ANC lost control of several of South Africa's key cities. It was at the publisher before the ANC conference that elected a new president for the governing party, a president who declared his determination to clear up the corruption and financial waste of resources. Gilder predicts both of these events in his novel.
We can but hope that another prediction, which comes in the very first pages, is inaccurate, namely the assassination in parliament of the recently elected president.
To those of us who love South Africa, who like whodunits, and are interested in South Africa's history in the past 40 or 50 years, I warmly recommend Barry Gilder's"The List".
September 13, 2018
This novel touched me. I had tears in my eyes at the end.
Though it is a sad story the book is a true thriller - “un-put-downable”. Barry Gilder can well be the South African John Le Carré.
Of course, the story is an outflow of the author's imagination, informed imagination as he himself says. And I’d underline the word informed. What "The List" describes is a reality in the world we live in, I’m afraid. The historic South African compromise of 1994 came at a high price.
As an anti-apartheid campaigner in the 1970s and 80s I do hope all the Nadines and Bongis (two characters in the book) will continue the revolutionary struggle for truth.
Though it is a sad story the book is a true thriller - “un-put-downable”. Barry Gilder can well be the South African John Le Carré.
Of course, the story is an outflow of the author's imagination, informed imagination as he himself says. And I’d underline the word informed. What "The List" describes is a reality in the world we live in, I’m afraid. The historic South African compromise of 1994 came at a high price.
As an anti-apartheid campaigner in the 1970s and 80s I do hope all the Nadines and Bongis (two characters in the book) will continue the revolutionary struggle for truth.
February 3, 2019
Although 'The List' plays in the heart of a South Africa deeply in trouble after 25 years of freedom and democracy, it would be a mistake to think its subject is unique to the country of Mandela. Maybe one can say South Africa is particularly clearsighted about the rot that has bedevilled the state for many years now. But readers familiar with other countries with a history of dictatorships or oppressive regimes of various nature - think of Spain, Italy, Chile, Bresil and many others - will be fascinated recognising that similar stories have been playing, are probably playing or are likely to surface one day in many such countries.
Recent alarming shifts and regime changes to the extreme right in apparently quite different contexts in different parts of the world raise many questions. Where do they come from? Why now? Did we miss The Signs, as this novel calls them, signs of what exactly? That is the starting point of 'The List'. The novel then tells a gripping story of the dangerous top-secret search for stay-behind infiltrators of the old regime and of the damage years of subversion can do to a democracy that hoped to be freed from the clutches of the former rulers. It is a spy novel told by a spy master. It is fiction. Really?
This novel is a fine illustration of how good novels may approach reality more surely than any real life story can. It is particularly successful in this. The plot is clever and credible, devoid of annoying conspiracy theory. That in itself reminds of the winding quality of John Le Carré stories, as does the footprint throughout of the expert author.
(Fuller review to follow if possible)
Recent alarming shifts and regime changes to the extreme right in apparently quite different contexts in different parts of the world raise many questions. Where do they come from? Why now? Did we miss The Signs, as this novel calls them, signs of what exactly? That is the starting point of 'The List'. The novel then tells a gripping story of the dangerous top-secret search for stay-behind infiltrators of the old regime and of the damage years of subversion can do to a democracy that hoped to be freed from the clutches of the former rulers. It is a spy novel told by a spy master. It is fiction. Really?
This novel is a fine illustration of how good novels may approach reality more surely than any real life story can. It is particularly successful in this. The plot is clever and credible, devoid of annoying conspiracy theory. That in itself reminds of the winding quality of John Le Carré stories, as does the footprint throughout of the expert author.
(Fuller review to follow if possible)
April 28, 2020
#FreedomWasNeverFree
My thoughts on Barry Gilder’s “The List”
I read the “Author’s note” multiple times, and I suspect many will too. He emphatically, and repeatedly, says “This book, is, emphatically, a work of fiction.”….
He may just have brilliantly captured what so many writers aspire to, in what Robert McKee describes :
“True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature. In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility.”
But….
Many who claim to have been part of the great labour of duty and love in the struggle against Apartheid, will recognise the culture of secrets and lies, the NTK (Need to know) world, the demand for discipline that meant you lie to the ones you love, and discover down the line, you’re not the only one with secrets. The frustration of knowing there was always a list of cadres who colluded with the Boere, who rose to the echelons of power, some who today still wield an Agenda scripted by the narcisistic mentally distorted Apartheid policies and soldiers...
Yet, we understand and placate our worrying minds, that the list could have been a ruse, a means to further sew divisions within the ANC, drove many of us to the edge at times, paranoid and distrusting.
The narrative is so close to home, running into 2018, it made the hair on my body stand up! There’s even a few truths in his telling…or maybe Barry simply made good choices in storytelling? A master of fiction?
The 2020 part yes, one can argue, is conjecture or fiction, given that he claims to have completed writing THE LIST by 2017. Our paranoia and fear about who was/ is spying on whom, can reach heights of madness, yes, but there are many who believe that #TheFightBack could unravel as Barry's fiction does. I hope not!!!! Either way, our truth (story) unfolds for now, outside of this book, with a surprise #COVID-19 thrown into the stew, giving some much needed reprieve, time to sharpen claws, and/or a distraction or deflection in a time of re-building our broken selves. or is #Covid-19 a blessing in disguise?
“If the story you're telling, is the story you're telling, you're in deep shit.” Robert McKee #FreedomDay2020
My thoughts on Barry Gilder’s “The List”
I read the “Author’s note” multiple times, and I suspect many will too. He emphatically, and repeatedly, says “This book, is, emphatically, a work of fiction.”….
He may just have brilliantly captured what so many writers aspire to, in what Robert McKee describes :
“True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature. In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility.”
But….
Many who claim to have been part of the great labour of duty and love in the struggle against Apartheid, will recognise the culture of secrets and lies, the NTK (Need to know) world, the demand for discipline that meant you lie to the ones you love, and discover down the line, you’re not the only one with secrets. The frustration of knowing there was always a list of cadres who colluded with the Boere, who rose to the echelons of power, some who today still wield an Agenda scripted by the narcisistic mentally distorted Apartheid policies and soldiers...
Yet, we understand and placate our worrying minds, that the list could have been a ruse, a means to further sew divisions within the ANC, drove many of us to the edge at times, paranoid and distrusting.
The narrative is so close to home, running into 2018, it made the hair on my body stand up! There’s even a few truths in his telling…or maybe Barry simply made good choices in storytelling? A master of fiction?
The 2020 part yes, one can argue, is conjecture or fiction, given that he claims to have completed writing THE LIST by 2017. Our paranoia and fear about who was/ is spying on whom, can reach heights of madness, yes, but there are many who believe that #TheFightBack could unravel as Barry's fiction does. I hope not!!!! Either way, our truth (story) unfolds for now, outside of this book, with a surprise #COVID-19 thrown into the stew, giving some much needed reprieve, time to sharpen claws, and/or a distraction or deflection in a time of re-building our broken selves. or is #Covid-19 a blessing in disguise?
“If the story you're telling, is the story you're telling, you're in deep shit.” Robert McKee #FreedomDay2020
October 23, 2018
Inside South Africa
May 26, 2020
This is a chilling novel. Reading it with the onset of winter and in the midst of a global pandemic doesn't help.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews