§ 04 · Monthly Calendar

November – A Calendar of Our History

These are the dates I mark in November – drawn from the cultural, political and intellectual record. November’s dates run from a singer’s birth to a writer’s execution, with a student leader, a novelist, three independence days, the Berlin Conference, South Africa’s Interim Constitution and the 16 Days of Activism between them. Dates are checked against primary records where they exist. Where only the month of an event is documented, no day is invented. No publication commitments are implied.

Part I

Institutional & International Commemorations

National public holidays, UN and AU designations, and constitutional milestones.

4 Nov
1946 · 80 years
UNESCO comes into force
The Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization came into force on 4 November 1946.
4 Nov
1977 · 49 years
Security Council Resolution 418
On 4 November 1977 the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 418, a mandatory arms embargo on South Africa. The vote was unanimous.
18 Nov
Agreed 1993 · 33 years
The Interim Constitution
The multi-party negotiating plenary agreed the text of South Africa’s Interim Constitution in the early hours of 18 November 1993. Sources describe the plenary as agreeing or ratifying the text; no later step is dated here.
25 Nov
International Day
Elimination of Violence against Women
Designated by the United Nations General Assembly in resolution 54/134.
25 Nov – 10 Dec
Annual campaign
16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children
South Africa’s annual campaign runs from 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to 10 December, International Human Rights Day. South Africa adds children to the campaign.
Part II

Pan-African Intellectual, Cultural & Liberation Record

Independence days, birth and death anniversaries, and founding moments that constitute the African intellectual and liberation inheritance.

1 Nov
1954 · 72 years
The FLN launches the war of liberation in Algeria
The National Liberation Front (FLN) launched the war of liberation in Algeria on 1 November 1954.
3 Nov
Born 1964 · 62 years
Brenda Fassie
Singer, born in Langa, Cape Town, on 3 November 1964; she died in Johannesburg on 9 May 2004, aged 39. A producer heard her sing at sixteen, and she rose to fame with Brenda and the Big Dudes and their 1983 hit “Weekend Special”. She then built a solo career that kept her at the forefront of South African popular music for some twenty years. Her 1998 album Memeza was the country’s best-selling release of that year, and she became known as the “Madonna of the townships”.
9 Nov
Born · year not carried
Onkgopotse Tiro
Student leader and Black Consciousness activist. As president of the Student Representative Council at the University of the North (Turfloop), he gave the 1972 graduation speech that criticised Bantu Education. He went on to organise for the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO), taught history at Morris Isaacson High School in Soweto, and went into exile in Botswana, where he was killed by a parcel bomb in Gaborone on 1 February 1974. There is no agreement on the correct year of his birth, 1945 or 1947.
10 Nov
Died 2008 · 18 years
Miriam Makeba
Singer and anti-apartheid campaigner, known as Mama Africa, born near Johannesburg on 4 March 1932. She began singing professionally in 1954 and settled in the United States in 1959. South Africa revoked her passport and banned her records. Her hit “Pata Pata” made her known around the world, and she won a Grammy Award with Harry Belafonte. She lived in exile for some three decades before returning to South Africa. She died on 10 November 2008 in Castel Volturno, Italy, after performing at a concert there.
10 Nov
Executed 1995 · 31 years
Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni activists
Nigerian writer and activist. In 1990 he helped found the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), which called for Ogoni political autonomy and control of the oil revenue from their land, and spoke out against the environmental damage done by oil operations in the Niger Delta. He was arrested in 1994. Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were executed by hanging in Nigeria on 10 November 1995.
11 Nov
Proclaimed 1975 · 51 years
Angola
Independence proclaimed on 11 November 1975. Agostinho Neto, leader of the MPLA, was proclaimed the first president and held the office until his death in 1979.
15 Nov
1884 · 142 years
The Berlin Conference opens
The Berlin Conference opened on 15 November 1884 and ran to 26 February 1885. Treated at length in “Borders Were Drawn at Berlin. Refusing to Be Divided by Them Is Africa’s Work”.
16 Nov
Born 1930 · 96 years
Chinua Achebe
Nigerian novelist, born in Ogidi on 16 November 1930; he died in Boston on 21 March 2013. Things Fall Apart (1958) was followed by No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). In 2007 he won the Man Booker International Prize for his body of work.
18 Nov
Independence Day
Morocco
Morocco marks 18 November as its Independence Day, commemorating the return of Sultan Mohammed V from exile in November 1955. Independence from France was proclaimed on 2 March 1956. No year-count is carried.
20 Nov
Born 1938 · 88 years
Pat Matshikiza
Pianist, singer and composer, born in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape on 20 November 1938, and a pioneer of South African jazz. His 1975 album Tshona!, recorded with the alto saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi, became a township jazz evergreen, and he followed it with Sikiza Matshikiza in 1976. He died on 29 December 2014.
28 Nov
1960 · 66 years
Mauritania
Independence from France on 28 November 1960. Moktar Ould Daddah was the first president of independent Mauritania and led the country until 1978.
30 Nov
Died 2008 · 18 years
Nthato Motlana
Doctor, businessman and anti-apartheid activist, born in Marapyane in 1925. A member of the ANC Youth League, he later served as a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. He died at his home in Johannesburg on 30 November 2008.
November
Theme of the month
Remembering colonialism
What colonialism took, and what Africa has asked to be remembered. Carried as a theme of the month; no official day of remembrance is named.

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