The EWJF press release is copied below below for your information. Please also visit www.ewjf.org.uk
Edinburgh World Justice Festivalc/o Jubilee Scotland, 41 George IV Bridge Edinburgh, EH1 1EL
Press Notice
5 October 2013
Denis Goldberg, colleague of Nelson Mandela, to open Edinburgh World Justice Festival
‘World Justice and Austerity’ on Saturday 12 October kicks of unique programme of 21 events
Edinburgh World Justice Festival Committee is delighted to announce that Denis Goldberg, a comrade of Nelson Mandela during the South African struggle against apartheid, is coming to Edinburgh to launch the seventh Edinburgh World Justice Festival. The Festival presents a window on to the world justice movement through a two week series of talks, fims, concerts, workshops, a walking tours and many other events.
Professor Goldberg will be the keynote speaker at the opening event on World Justice and Austerity at the Grassmarket Centre, 11 am – 5 pm on Saturday 12 October, He will be welcomed there by Cllr Andrew Burns, leader of City of Edinburgh Council. His speech will be followed by sessions run by a diversity of organisations on topics such as Food Justice, Debt, Latin America, trade union solidarity, environmental justice and working for peace.
Matthew Crighton, the Festival’s Chair, says “It is a landmark event to have such a prominent figure as Denis Goldberg coming to Edinburgh to launch the Festival. Professor Goldberg, through his long imprisonment in South Africa, has first hand knowledge of injustice and his work in the peace and restorative justice movement, as well as his experience of rebuilding South Africa into a more just society, will be a fascinating and insightful start to the Festival. We are honoured that he has accepted our invitation”.
The Festival runs from 12 – 26 October and includes 21 events involving 29 different organisations.
“Edinburgh has the only world justice festival on the planet and we’re especially pleased that this year it has grown to cover two full weeks. It shows how vibrant is the city’s commitment to a better world and it offers a brilliant shop-window on all this activity” said Matthew Crighton.
“While millions are unemployed, inequality is growing and our environment is in severe danger it’s important that we highlight the creative thinking and the solutions coming from across the world. We don’t just want to offer assistance to people at the sharp end, we want to learn from them and be part of the solution. It seems that too often in the media that the problems of the world are well-aired but the solutions aren’t”.
More information from www.ewjf.org.uk, or e-mail info@ewjf.org.uk.
ENDS
Contact Details: Matthew Crighton; matthewcrighton@gmail.com. 07851348426.
Notes for editors:
DENIS GOLDBERG
Denis Goldberg (born1933) is a Jewish South African social campaigner, who was imprisoned along with other key members of the anti-apartheid movement. He grew up and studied for a degree in Civil Engineering in Cape Town. He joined the African National Congress and was detained in 1960 and spent four months in prison without trial.
When the ANC’s underground armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe was founded in 1961, Goldberg became a technical officer. In 1963 he was arrested at the headquarters of their army and was sentenced in 1964 at the end of the famous Rivonia Trial to four terms of life imprisonment, at the same time as Nelson Mandela and others. He was the only white member of Umkhonto we Sizwe to be arrested and sentenced in the Rivonia Trial to life imprisonment.
He was sent to a white prison in Pretoria. After 22 years in prison, he was released. He went into exile in London where he joined his family and resumed his work in the ANC in its London office from 1985 to 1994. He was a spokesperson for the ANC and also represented it at the Anti-Apartheid Committee of the United Nations. After the first non-racial elections in South Africa Goldberg founded the development organisation Community H.E.A.R.T. in London in 1995 to help overcome apartheid’s awful legacy – it gives priority to health, education and training projects based on the principle of self-help. He was involved in the early days of Computer Aid International in London, and is now CAI's Patron and Ambassador.
In 2010 he published his autobiography, The Mission: A Life for Freedom in South Africa (STE Publishers, Johannesburg). Denis is a friend of Nelson Mandela’s. In his book A Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela quotes Denis in the Rivonia Courtroom shouting “Life, Life to live!”.
EDINBURGH WORLD JUSTICE FESTIVAL
The festival was started in 2006 by a group who wanted to keep alive the spirit of the massive “Make Poverty History” in Edinburgh.
In the summer of 2005, while the G8 met in Scotland (and made promises some of which have yet to be kept) a people’s movement was born in Edinburgh. Under the banner of “Make Poverty History” a quarter of a million people marched on Edinburgh’s streets calling for an end to man-made poverty through changes to a glaringly unjust trade system and a suffocating debt burden. Since then the Edinburgh World Justice Festival has continued to keep world justice issues on the agenda in our city. The Festival gives us an opportunity to explore what we as individuals and as a community can do to work for positive change.
The Festival brings together a wide range or organisations and individuals with a shared set of values, these are: Justice, Peace, Non-violence, Human rights for all, Democracy (within the organisation and in the wider world), Respect of differences, Independence and self-responsibility, Honesty & openness, Equality, Solidarity – with each other, the local and global community, Accessibility to all, Voluntary contribution, Quality of experience (for both contributors and audiences).
The festival is supported by a large number of organisations which demonstrate the diversity and energy of the movement for world justice in the city. They include development charities like Oxfam and Christian Aid, peace organisations like Edinburgh CND, trade unions, and churches.
See www.ewjf.org.uk
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