The Enemy Within

by Steve Jacobs

Steve Jacobs trained as a lawyer but left his legal career to concentrate on writing. He is an active campaigner against cruelty to animals and has worked with squatters at Crossroads and in a local group opposing a nuclear power station. Set in South Africa in the early 1990s, against a backdrop of de Klerk's rise to power, Steve Jacobs tells the story of Jeremy Spielman, a Jewish junior barrister, and his defense of a Xhosa man accused of murder. The murder trial, an Afrikaner girlfriend, and a mother who has tried to keep him from gentiles his whole life, all force Jeremy to confront his own love-hate relationship with the anti-apartheid struggle, South Africa's almost unconscious racism, anti-Semitism, and his faith in an unjust legal system.

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Must Read Africa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel captures the trial of David Tshabalala against the background of the shifting political climate in South Africa, making the novel one exciting read.

A black man already worn out by apartheid murders his wife. His fate is in the hands of a young Jewish lawyer, Jeremy Spielman.
South Africa is at the crossroads. The African National Congress (ANC) is unbanned. Mandela will be walking free.
South Africa is changing, but the beneficiaries of apartheid do not want change. The white minority is threatened. The black majority must shoulder more extenuating circumstances despite Mandela's release. Hope for a better and equal south Africa seems far fetched.
Jeremy quickly realizes that taking this case brings him to confront the racism in his own family, that of his girlfriend Elmarie and his role in the struggle to abolish apartheid.

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book reminded me of Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird- where justice is blurred by racism and prejudices that don't seem to develop a people.
It follows Jeremy who is asked by the state/government to defend a black man who is accused of murdering his wife. Jeremy in turn learns of how racist most of the people are around him- and that he's not doing anything to help the oppressed by keeping quiet and letting other talk ill of them.
It's a battle that he fights within himself and that's what makes this story interesting.

[Betty-Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an insight into post apartheid South Africa at the dawn of the release of Nelson Mandela. It shows how in struggling for freedom by black South Africans, a militant group emerged to fight the white supremacy as well as be a sort of government for black South Africans. This created an environment of suspicion and fear and crime that is still a problem in modern South Africa.
The book shines a new light on apartheid and its devastating effects on the social fabric of South Africa.

[Sara-Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

the worst of white liberal guilt