Democratic Dawn

Democratic Dawn is the last of a four book anthology, counterpointing the lives of four main characters against a transforming South Africa, moving slowly toward 1994 democratic elections. The first book is titled The Greatest Game - The Sixties, it introduces you to a zany schoolboy named Rupertheimer, and his friends called the Pack. They are the Englishman Nick Jarvis and Peter Khumalo the Zulu, along with the Afrikaner Hofmeyr, who is a talented rugby player. Unfortunately there...
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Democratic Dawn is the last of a four book anthology, counterpointing the lives of four main characters against a transforming South Africa, moving slowly toward 1994 democratic elections. The first book is titled The Greatest Game - The Sixties, it introduces you to a zany schoolboy named Rupertheimer, and his friends called the Pack. They are the Englishman Nick Jarvis and Peter Khumalo the Zulu, along with the Afrikaner Hofmeyr, who is a talented rugby player. Unfortunately there are also the school liberals Thorn Thompson and Dick Clott, who would engender in Rupertheimer, a lifelong abhorrence of neoliberalism. This first book describes the sixties schooldays where Rupertheimer scores a rugby penalty with a piano, then comes military service where Rupertheimer manages to sink a SA Navy ship, and makes a mortal enemy in navy Killick Vokop. Despite the misfortunes that often befall him, Rupertheimer shows early signs of the remarkable prescience, he'd one day employ to guide his country to an embryonic democracy.The second book is titled Ballad of Steve Biker - The Seventies, it recounts a seventies overseas holiday by the Pack where they meet their future wives, and also come under the influence of a mysterious motorcyclist named Steve Biker. He is the alter ego of Steve Biko and has a profound impact on the Pack, especially on Peter Khumalo who returns home to join the Struggle, which lands him in a fierce standoff with a Colonel Kokkenbull at Rupertheimer's wedding. Book three is titled Sons and Daughters - The Eighties, it describes Peter Khumalo's incarceration on Robber Island Prison, while his friends concentrate on bringing up Sons and Daughters. Rupertheimer battles with liberal Green Freaks, Hofmeyr grapples with technical problems at decrepit Hospital Hill, but Nick Jarvis experiences Marital Blues when his wife has an affair with journalist Thorn Thompson. Then in 1988 Peter Khumalo is released from Robber Island Prison, so he joins the Rupertheimer Corporation as a labour lawyer, which he comes to regret when he's involved in Labour Pains.Then comes the last book Democratic Dawn - The Nineties, where Rupertheimer steers his country through the nineties transition, by outwitting his right-wing Afrikaner uncle Barefoot Battelle who has being joined by Rupertheimer's arch-enemy Killick Vokop. Yet Rupertheimer wins through with the help of tough police General Kokkenbull, to finally arrive at the first South African fully democratic election in 1994, a glorious achievement unparalleled throughout history. Never before had a ruling elite willingly given up power, and nowhere had a single bold individual achieved it, the Greatest Game series of books reveal who that remarkable individual was. Yet ever since his schooldays Rupertheimer has been plagued by two wannabe liberal journalists, Thorn Thompson and Dick Clott now write for a newspaper called Liberal Times, so they feel free to express their own liberal individual rights.The Liberal Times is owned by Australian media mogul Croc Hack, who is too spineless to control his journalists, which results in a telephone hacking scandal in his British press. Rupertheimer's uncle is famous industrialist Randlord Rupertheimer, he remonstrates with his friend Croc Hack but to no avail, until the shocking Jimmy Savile paedophilia scandal spurs the timorous Croc Hack into action. He sells his British newspapers who hacked celebrity telephones, yet kept silent about Jimmy Savile, and as a last act Croc Hack fires Thorn Thompson and Dick Clott. So in concert with his arch-enemy Killick Vokop, Rupertheimer's journalist foes stage a raid on Hotazel Diamond Mine, where Rupertheimer and his now reformed uncle Barefoot Battelle thwart them. The book ends when Roy Rupertheimer and Liza Jarvis get married on December 31st 2001, there is joy at the union of the children but also a sombre warning, that on September 11th 2001 pseudo liberalism will be struck a mortal blow.