Rick Turner's Politics as the Art of the Impossible, edited by Michael Onyebuchi Eze, Lawrence Hamilton, Laurence Piper, Gideon van Riet

This extraordinary volume is both recovery and critique. Prior to his assassination as an anti-apartheid activist, Rick Turner was then – and is now – an inspiring political philosopher. Readers will find proof of this in the high-quality critical engagements collected here.
— Terrell Carver, Professor of Political Theory, School of Sociology, University of Bristol
Situating Rick Turner in both the past and the present, between hope and tragedy, this important volume reminds us of another time when the future was a matter of passionate commitment to building a new world or, as Turner put it, Utopia. Turner comes to life as an interlocutor who continues to be relevant to our contemporary predicaments.
— Suren Pillay, Head of African Studies and Linguistics and Director of the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town
Rick Turner was a South African academic and activist who rebelled against apartheid at the height of its power. For this he was assassinated in 1978, at just 32 years of age, but his life and work are testimony to the power of philosophical thinking for humans everywhere. Turner chose to live freely in an unfree time and argued for a non-racial, socialist future in a context where this seemed unimaginable.
This book takes seriously Rick Turner’s challenge that political theorising requires thinking in a utopian way. Turner’s seminal book The Eye of the Needle: Towards a Participatory Democracy in South Africa laid out some of his most potent ideas on a radically different political and economic system. His demand was that we work to escape the limiting ideas of the present, carefully design a just future based on shared human values, and act to make it a reality, both politically and in our daily lives.
The contributors to this volume engage critically with Turner’s work on race relations, his relationship with Steve Biko, his views on religion, education and gender oppression, his participatory model of democracy, and his critique of enduring forms of poverty and economic inequality. They show how, in his life and work, Turner modelled how we can dare to be free and how hope can return, as the future always remains open to human construction. This book makes an important contribution to contemporary thinking and activism where the need for South Africans to define their understanding of their greater common good is of crucial importance.
About the Editors
Michael Onyebuchi Eze teaches Africana studies at California State University, Fresno and is an associate to the SA UK Bilateral Research Chair in Political Theory, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and the Univesrity of Cambridge.
Lawrence Hamilton is Professor in Political Studies and the SA-UK Bilateral Research Chair in Political Theory at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and the University of Cambridge.
Laurence Piper is Professor of Political Science at the University of the Western Cape, and University West.
Gideon van Riet is Associate Professor of Political Studies at North-West University.