Pallo Jordan was born on 22 May 1942 in B Location, Kroonstad in Free State. Jordan was born to educated parents. His father, Dr Archibald Campbell Jordan was the African novelist, linguist, and academic and his mother Dr Priscilla Phyllis (born, Ntantala) Jordan was a teacher, researcher and lecturer. Jordan took his education very seriously. After finishing his schooling he attended various universities in South Africa, USA and Britain. He left the country in 1962 to study at the University of Wisconsin in the US. He has acquired a number of degrees including a post-graduate degree from the London School of Economics.

Jordan's family was highly politicised. Both his parents were active members of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM). Jordan followed into their footsteps. He started off by selling copies of Torch, a newspaper produced by the NEUM at the age of seven. In 1975 while was in London, Jordan worked for the African National Congress (ANC) on full-time basis in its London offices. He worked as a researcher in the ANC Department of Information and Publicity. In 1977 he was deployed to Angola to head Radio Freedom based in Luanda. That same year he also became involved in training programmes for new recruits into Umkhonto we Sizwe, employing his academic background in history to compile a syllabus for political training.

In 1979, on the recommendation of Oliver Tambo, he was appointed director of the ANC's first internal mass propaganda campaign, The Year of the Spear, marking the centenary of the Battle of Isandhlwana of 1879. With Jordan at the helm the ANC produced a plethora of imaginative communication tools including posters, postcards, floppy disks, cassette tapes, bumper stickers, T-shirts, comic books and news sheets with the aim of reviving in popular memory the traditions of armed resistance to conquest and colonial domination. In 1980 Jordan was promoted to head the Research Unit of the ANC department of information and Publicity.

This appointment required him to relocate to the movements headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia. The quality of his research work is reflected in some of his published papers. These include Review of Moses Kotane: African Revolutionary (1974); The Soweto Uprising: an Analysis (1976); The African Petit Bourgeoisie: A Case Study of NAFCOC (1984); The New Face of Counter-Revolution (1985); The South African Liberation Movement and the Making of a New Nation (1986); The Politics of the Current Conjuncture (1987) and The Politics of the National Democratic Movement (1988).

Between 1985 and his return to South Africa in mid-1990, Jordan led a number of delegations of ANC researchers and scholars to international conferences and seminars in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, the USA, Britain, and the then USSR. A paper titled The Southern Africa Policy of the Soviet Union - with Specific Reference to South Africa: Some Notes (1990) marked a refreshing departure for an ANC scholar in its critical appraisal of Soviet policy from a left perspective. In 1990 he entered into a lengthy debate on the character of the Soviet Union with SACP Chairman, Joe Slovo, in an article titled The Crisis of Conscience in the SACP - A Critical Review of Slovo's 'Has Socialism Failed?' demonstrating the diversity of opinion in the tripartite alliance. He later took issue with Slovo over the strategic direction of the negotiations process in 1983.

In 1985 Jordan was appointed to serve in the ANC National Preparatory Committee, which was preparing for its major policy conference In Kwabe, Botswana. In this conference Jordan was appointed to the ANC National Executive Committee. From 1985 to 1989 he served on the NEC's Strategy and Tactics Committee as convenor. He has also served on the NEC's sub-committee on negotiations and the NEC's sub-committee on constitutional guidelines. In 1989 he took over Thabo Mbeki as director of information and publicity.

In 1986 Jordan accompanied Oliver Tambo, Mac Maharaj, Chris Hani, Thabo Mbeki and James Stuart to the meeting between White business leaders and the ANC at the Kangwa Game Reserve, Zambia. He was also part of the ANC's delegations to the IDASA-sponsored Dakar (1987) and Paris (1989) conferences. After the unanticipated announcement by the then state President F.W De Klerk to unban the ANC and other liberation movements, Jordan returned to the country in June 1990. In 1991 Jordan managed to retain his NEC position at the ANC first consultative national conference inside the country in 30 years. He became a well-known personality on South African television as the ANC's main media spokesperson before and during the 1994 elections.

After first democratic elections, Pallo Jordan was sworn in as a Member of Parliament and Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting on 9 May 1994 in the Government of National Unity after the April 1994 elections. He served on two Cabinet Committees, namely, Economic and Social and Administrative Affairs.

In April 1996 Pallo Jordan was replaced by Jay Naidoo as Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting after a cabinet reshuffle. He was re-appointed to a cabinet post in May 1996, as the Minister for Environmental Affairs and Tourism until was axed allegedly for his differences with President Nelson Mandela. After 2004 national elections, Jordan made his way back to the Cabinet when was appointed Minister of Arts and Culture by President Thabo Mbeki.

Dr Jordan and his wife, Carlyn Roth, have one daughter.

Click here to read Dr Jordan tribute to Sipho Gumede

Click here to read Dr Jordan speech at Chris Hani memorial lecture

Sources:

http://www.anc.org.za/people/jordan.html

http://www.mbendi.co.za/vpsapj.htm