Allan Boesak

Allan Boesak
Allan Boesak (1986)
Religion	Christian
Denomination	Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk
Personal
Nationality	South African
Born	(1946-02-23) 23 February 1946 (age 71) Kakamas, Northern Cape
Spouse	Elna Botha
Senior posting
Title	Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureate
Period in office	-1990
Religious career
Post	Desmond Tutu Chairman for Peace, Global Justice, and Reconciliation Studies

Allan Aubrey Boesak (born 23 February 1946 in Kakamas, Northern Cape) is a South African Dutch Reformed Church cleric and politician and anti-apartheid activist. He was sentenced to prison for fraud in 1999 but was subsequently granted an official pardon and reinstated as a cleric in late 2004.

Along with Beyers Naude and Winnie Mandela, Boesak won the 1985 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award given annually by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights to an individual or group whose courageous activism is at the heart of the human rights movement and in the spirit of Robert F. Kennedy's vision and legacy.

Boesak became active in the separate Coloured branch of the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk and began to work as a pastor in Paarl. He became known then as a liberation theologian, starting with the publication of his doctoral work (Farewell to Innocence, 1976). For the next decade or so, he continued to write well-received books and collections of essays, sermons, and so on. An anti-apartheid speech of his was sampled by British electronica group The Shamen on their album En Tact.

Boesak was elected as president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 1982, a position he held until 1991.

He rose to prominence during the 1980s as an outspoken critic and opponent of the National Party's policies and played a major anti-apartheid activist role as a patron of the United Democratic Front (UDF) from 1983 to 1991. In 1991, Boesak was elected chairman of the Western Cape region of the African National Congress (ANC).