Online via online audio connection, Combs 003, Wednesday July 6, 1.30 – 2.15 pm.
On Wednesday July 6, Ambassador Tony Leon will speak to and answer questions from students in the summer session course ‘Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa,’ (Geog 305) taught by Dr. Donald N. Rallis, Associate Professor of Geography at UMW. This particular meeting of the class is open to all members of the UMW community and to members of the public.
Tony Leon is an accomplished South African politician, author, and diplomat. He began his career with a degree in law from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and went on to serve as a faculty member in the School of Law at the University.
His career in public office began as a Johannesburg City Councilor, and in 1989 he was elected as a Progressive Party Member of Parliament for Houghton (a district previously represented by the anti-apartheid icon Helen Suzman.)
From 1990 to 1994, the crucial period of transition of South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy, Tony Leon served as chair of his party’s Bill of Rights Commission. He was also as a delegate to the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA,) central to the negotiations that led to establishment of a democratic South Africa in 1994.
From 1994 until his retirement from Parliament in 2007, he served as leader of the Democratic Alliance (successor to the Progressive Party,) and also as Leader of the Official Opposition in Parliament. He become known as an outspoken opponent of those policies of the governing party, the ANC, with which he and his party disagreed, among these the government’s failure to deal adequately with the problems of poverty, unemployment and the country’s HIV epidemic.
Tony Leon retired from Parliament in 2007, and was succeeded as DA leader by Helen Zille. In late 2007, he served a Fellow at the Institute of Government at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In 2008, he published his second book, On the Contrary, described by The Economist as ‘an important record of South Africa’s young democracy, witnessed from the other side of the fence.’ His talk will focus on this part of his career, although he will answer questions on any other topics audience members wish to raise.
In 2009, Tony Leon was appointed by President Jacob Zuma to serve as South Africa’s Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, the position he currently holds.
Tony Leon is no stranger to the University of Mary Washington, having delivered a guest presentation on campus in 2007.
Tony Leon’s talk is part of the course the Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa (Geog 305) taught by Dr. Donald N. Rallis of the UMW Department of Geography. The Ambassador will join the class via internet connection from his office in Buenos Aires. The lecture takes place as part of the initial stages of UMW’s recently launched Online Learning Initiative, a project to develop at least six model courses in on online format consistent with the “distinctive UMW experience” and an “institutional culture that is student-centered, collaborative, and responsive to students’ needs and expectations.” Dr. Rallis is one of six faculty members to receive grants to develop such a course during the 2011-12 academic year. The event is also part of Dr. Rallis’s online effort to expand awareness of the connections between current events and geography.
For more on Tony Leon, see:
‘The Other Side of the Fence.’ The Economist, August 14, 2008
‘Tony Leon.’ Who’s Who Southern Africa
South African Embassy – Buenos Aires