John Pilger was made an Honorary Graduand of Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, in March 2008.
The following citation was made by Professor Paul Maylam…
“In Vietnam in 1967 he lay in a muddy war zone, under fire. A year later he was standing a few yards away when Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. In April 1975 he was one of the last journalists to leave Vietnam, on the day of the American evacuation. In Cambodia he himself was targeted for assassination by the genocidal Khmer Rouge. He risked his life in East Timor making a film about the East Timorese struggle for independence from Indonesia. John Pilger is a survivor – not only a survivor, but also one of the most important and influential international journalists of the past forty years. And not just a journalist filing newspaper reports, but also author of several books, prolific film-maker, and ardent campaigner for justice. Through his writing and film-making he has drawn worldwide attention to some of the most brutal atrocities and worst injustices perpetrated in the post-war world.
John Pilger’s address to Rhodes University: Honouring the ‘unbreakable promise’