A new book containing the writings of disgraced former cabinet minister and ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Pallo Jordan blames "vanity" for him claiming to have had a doctorate for over three decades.
The new collection of his writings, Letters To My Comrades: Interventions & Excursions, reveals that the claim was made out of vanity rather than greed or gain.
The book, compiled by Jordan's longtime friend and poet laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile and writer and publisher Mothobi Mutloatse, states that his "sin appears to have been vanity rather than greed or gain".
Jordan was exposed by the Sunday Times in August 2014 for having a fake doctorate and was forced to resign as ANC MP and member of the national executive committee.
"It is disquieting even to imagine the humiliation suffered by such a proud and sensitive man," reads the book's introduction.
The writers described the debacle as the implosion of Jordan's world and a "deeply personal tragedy of a man who had long insisted on the importance of probity in public life brought low by the revelation of his fraudulent title".
According to the writers, "the source of the misattribution is dramatic".
The "misattribution" was first made in an Africa Confidential report after the parcel bomb sent by apartheid spy Craig Williamson killed Ruth First and injured Jordan in 1982.
The Africa Confidential report referred to the former arts and culture minister as "social scientist Dr Pallo Jordan" who was injured in the blast at the Eduardo Mondlane University, where both Jordan and First worked at the time.
A few years after the blast, Jordan was asked where he obtained his doctorate and, according to the book, "grinned and said: "Africa Confidential bestowed it on me". The joke was not explored and the title continued to be used, according to the book.
Mutloatse could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Kgositsile said Jordan was in the Western Cape and only contactable via e-mail.
A few years after his parents, academic AC Jordan and feminist intellectual Phyllis Ntantala, went into exile with their four children in the early 1960s, he registered at the University of Wisconsin where his father was setting up an African Studies programme.
However, by 1967 Jordan, having moved to New York hoping to enrol for a master's in economics, history and philosophy, was expelled from the US. The collection was launched at the University of Johannesburg last week.
Blame 'vanity' for Jordan's shameful fall
A new book containing the writings of disgraced former cabinet minister and ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Pallo Jordan blames "vanity" for him claiming to have had a doctorate for over three decades.
The new collection of his writings, Letters To My Comrades: Interventions & Excursions, reveals that the claim was made out of vanity rather than greed or gain.
The book, compiled by Jordan's longtime friend and poet laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile and writer and publisher Mothobi Mutloatse, states that his "sin appears to have been vanity rather than greed or gain".
Jordan was exposed by the Sunday Times in August 2014 for having a fake doctorate and was forced to resign as ANC MP and member of the national executive committee.
"It is disquieting even to imagine the humiliation suffered by such a proud and sensitive man," reads the book's introduction.
The writers described the debacle as the implosion of Jordan's world and a "deeply personal tragedy of a man who had long insisted on the importance of probity in public life brought low by the revelation of his fraudulent title".
According to the writers, "the source of the misattribution is dramatic".
The "misattribution" was first made in an Africa Confidential report after the parcel bomb sent by apartheid spy Craig Williamson killed Ruth First and injured Jordan in 1982.
The Africa Confidential report referred to the former arts and culture minister as "social scientist Dr Pallo Jordan" who was injured in the blast at the Eduardo Mondlane University, where both Jordan and First worked at the time.
A few years after the blast, Jordan was asked where he obtained his doctorate and, according to the book, "grinned and said: "Africa Confidential bestowed it on me". The joke was not explored and the title continued to be used, according to the book.
Mutloatse could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Kgositsile said Jordan was in the Western Cape and only contactable via e-mail.
A few years after his parents, academic AC Jordan and feminist intellectual Phyllis Ntantala, went into exile with their four children in the early 1960s, he registered at the University of Wisconsin where his father was setting up an African Studies programme.
However, by 1967 Jordan, having moved to New York hoping to enrol for a master's in economics, history and philosophy, was expelled from the US. The collection was launched at the University of Johannesburg last week.
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