BAB Interviews and Conversations

A long-lasting collaboration and friendship has ended: BAB is mourning the passing of anti-apartheid
journalist and writer Ruth Weiss at the age of 101. We are humbled by her unwavering trust over
nearly 30 years in our work of curating her remarkable audio and paper archives. Her acoustic
archives alone comprise some 180 tapes with interview, press conference and music recordings
spanning several decades and including the voices and narratives of many southern African women
and men.
On occasion of her 90th birthday in 2014 we produced the exhibition “My very first question to you.
An acoustic portrait of the journalist Ruth Weiss and southern African liberation politics”. “My very
first question to you” was Ruth’s frequent opening phrase in her interviews. Drawing on her
interviews we commissioned recompositions from her archives and as such recompositions of her
voice and the voices of her interview partners.
The exhibition was shown in Basel, Cape Town, Lusaka and Bayreuth. It invited visitors to become
listeners to the acoustic reverberations of the African liberation archive. We invited reflection on the
continued relevance of the political and moral claims at stake during the struggle for freedom and
justice in Africa. Ruth’s legacy is closely entangled with these values which she continues to share
with us through her unique archives.
This podcast features one of the 2014 exhibition recompositions. We invite you to listen to Ruth’s
“very first question to you”.
Recomposition © : Ramon De Marco & Henrik Plünnecke, Idee und Klang (Basel, Switzerland)

Gesprochenes Audio Intro:
Welcome to the podcast series “BAB Interviews and Conversations” presented by the Basler Afrika
Bibliographien. Today’s episode provides an acoustic homage to the anti-apartheid journalist Ruth
Weiss who passed on in early September 2025 at the age of 101. The episode features Ruth’ frequent
opening phrase in her many interviews with southern African women and men: “My very first
question to you”. Recomposed with extracts from her unique acoustic archives, the composition
invites reflection on the continued relevance of her decade-long engagement in the struggle for
freedom and justice in Africa.
The recomposition is one of several which featured in the exhibition “My very first question to you.
An acoustic portrait of the journalist Ruth Weiss and southern African liberation politics”, shown on
occasion of her 90 th birthday in 2014 in Basel, Cape Town, Lusaka and Bayreuth.

Doek! is an online literary magazine published in Windhoek since 2019. It has brought to the front new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art —to much acclaim. Experimental and daring in various ways, its beautifully curated editions have enriched Africa’s literary and visual landscape quite unexpectedly. Early on, Rémy Ngamije, one of the co-founders, invited the Basler Afrika Bibliographien to contribute glimpses from its archival holdings and within the curatorial frame of providing “a window to the past”. After a series of historical photography explorations, we now jointly curate past Namibian voices in aural graphs.
In this extract from a public presentation in Basel on 24 July 2024, Ngamije reflects on the path he and his colleagues walked to imagine new literary futures in Windhoek. Today, five years later, he is an established writer and Doek! is not only a thriving magazine but also a prominent literary award and festival beacon.

Barbara Müller fungierte von 1973 bis 1988 als Präsidentin des Komitees «kämpfendes afrika» (ka), das 1971 als politische Solidaritätsorganisation Medic’ Angola begann. Zunächst eng mit dem maoistisch geprägten «proletarischen Internationalismus» der Kommunistischen Part der Schweiz verbunden, konnte das sich seit 1976 «kämpfendes afrika» nennende Komitee besonders enge Kontakte zu einigen Befreiungsbewegungen im südlichen Afrika aufbauen. Barbara Müller reflektiert im Gespräch mit dem BAB Archivar Dag Henrichsen zunächst über die Bedeutung von Freundschafts- und Solidaritätsbeziehungen mit afrikanischen Bewegungen in einem schwierigen politischem Umfeld (zu letzterem siehe auch den früheren podcast mit Barbara Müller vom 9. März 2023). Im zweiten Teil skizziert sie Veränderungen in der Unterstützungsarbeit am Beispiel der Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) und mit Bezug auf die Unabhängigkeit Zimbabwes 1980.
Dieser Auszug aus einem Gespräch vom 22. März 2023 bildet die siebte und vorläufig letzte Episode in der Podcast-Reihe zur Solidaritäts- und Anti-Apartheidbewegung in der Schweiz.

In view of South African journalist Ruth Weiss’s 90th birthday in 2014, BAB’ s archivists invited her in 2013 to a public conversation in the series “Archivgespräche” – “Archive talk”. In this podcast episode, conducted in both German and English, we provide an extract from the live-recorded conversation held in Basel. It includes introductions to Ruth Weiss’s collections by the archivists Dag Henrichsen and Susanne Hubler Baier, followed by historical interview snippets from her impressive tape collection and her reflections.
The conversation took place as part of the preparations for the BAB exhibition “’My very first question to you’. An acoustic portrait of the journalist Ruth Weiss and southern African liberation politics”, shown between 2014 and 2917 in Basel, Cape Town, Lusaka, and Bayreuth. The exhibition went along with the publication of her autobiography “A Path through Hard Grass. A Journalist’s Memories of Exile and Apartheid” (BAB 2014), with a foreword by South African writer Nadine Gordimer, Ruth Weiss’s lifelong friend about whom she also talks in the conversation. The recording also features snippets from interviews with the Anglican bishop Trevor Huddleston and ANC’s president Oliver Tambo.
This podcast episode is a fitting format to congratulate Ruth Weiss on her 100th birthday in 2024.

1973 als Teil einer Solidaritätsbewegung gegen Kolonialismus, Rassismus und Ausbeutung in der Schweiz entstanden, konzentrierte sich das Afrika-Komitee in Basel auf eine kritische Solidaritäts- und Informationsarbeit mit und zur Zivilgesellschaft in Afrika. Nach 50 Jahren löst sich das Komitee 2024 auf. Mitbegründer:innen Gertrud Baud und Hans-Ueli Stauffer reflektierten bereits 2018 in einem Gespräch mit BAB Archivar Dag Henrichsen über damalige Themensetzungen in der Schweizer Zivilgesellschaft und im «Bulletin» des Komitees, weiterhin «brennende» Themen mit Bezug auf den afrikanischen Kontinent sowie enttäuschende post-koloniale Entwicklungen.
Dieser Gesprächsauszug ergänzt eine Reihe von vorherigen podcasts zur Solidaritäts- und Anti-Apartheidsbewegung in der Schweiz, siehe hier.