Peter Swanepoel
Peter Swanepoel is a postgraduate researcher in history at the University of Johannesburg, focusing on the politics and institutions of South African cycling under apartheid. He is funded by the Wellcome Trust (University of Toronto), and is affiliated locally with UJ’s History Department under the supervision of Professor Thembisa Waetjen. Swanepoel co-authored a book with Henning van Aswegen, The Daisy Spy Ring: How South African Intelligence Agents Infiltrated and Disrupted the SA Communist Party (Naledi, 2025). He also writes on politics, history, and society more broadly.
Articles By This Author
Sandra Laing and the Zombie of Race Classification
How post-apartheid South Africa inherited the logic it claims to reject The government rightly condemns apartheid’s racial classification as primitive, even laughable, while continuing to
The Trump-Mamdani meeting: the problem isn’t hypocrisy, but devaluation
When the photographs emerged of Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani meeting in the Oval Office — smiling, shaking hands, exchanging compliments — I spent days
The Iran factor: what’s really holding Gaza’s ceasefire together
The peace deal holding Gaza together right now works for a reason most people don’t understand: Arab states fear Iran more than they care about
The familiar choices of a failing democracy: Cuomo vs Mamdani
As New York approaches its 2025 mayoral election, two very different candidates reveal the same underlying problem – a political system that keeps producing inadequate
Is war always a failure of humanity?
Finland’s President Alexander Stubb says yes. History says no. Stubb’s declaration in his recent UN speech – “War is always a failure of humanity” –