Alan Paton and the Rule of Law
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6025084 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maritza Black (University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 91 |
| Issue | 362 |
| Pages | 53-72 |
| Publication date | 1992-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | African Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-9909 • E-ISSN: 1468-2621 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/afraf/91.362.53 |
| OpenAlex | W2047489057 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
WITH THE RELATIVELY recent publication of ffourney Continued and Save the Beloved Country, it is possible to consider Alan Paton's achievement with a degree of hindsight and overview not possible previously. 70urney Continued, the second volume of his autobiography, carries on where the first volume, Tozuards The Mountain, leaves off, describing Paton's life after the Nationalist victory of 1948, when 'for the first time in his life he had to challenge the State'.1 Save The Beloved Country, a collection of his late speeches, essays and newspaper articles, bears witness to his work after the Liberal Party when, in Paton's first person, 'I became a political observer and my opinions were treated with respect because I had no partisan loyalties. It was for me a time of intellectual freedom'.2 With the aid of the two above additions to Paton's published oeuvre, I shall consider his achievement in relation to the Rule of Law. Hopefully, what follows will be a useful contribution to the surprisingly small amount of scholarship that exists on Paton as such. Perhaps, tangentially, it might also have some relevance to the situation in South Africa today. Paton was 'brought up to respect, almost respect, almost revere, the law'.3 Challenging the law, challenging authority, after 1948 was something he could only do by manufacturing a higher moral authority of his own. The Paton of Save The Beloved Country is in fact more than simply a 'political observer'. He is the self-styled philosopher-prophet writ large, pronouncing on the relationship between the state, Order, Liberty, and the Rule of Law as if on tablets of stone
| Citations per year | 0.14 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1997 - 2011 (15) |
| Highly cited | No |