The Itinerary

THE ITINERARY (Triumphs and Tribulations Political and Personal Memoirs of a PAC exile and activist 1963-1992) is the autobiographical account of a political activist, whose service in the struggle almost spanned the years of Apartheid in government. Ike Mafole became conscious politically as the National Party was enacting in earnest its plethora of racist laws and policies; his own family fell victim to the mass removals in which blacks were moved from areas designated white. The mass arrests of 1963 in which many PAC activists, many of whom were his personal friends and colleagues, were rounded up and subsequently sent to long terms of imprisonment, a swoop which he escaped by stroke of luck, weighed heavily on him throughout his years in exile; almost inducing in him a monastic commitment to the freedom struggle back in his country. His love for education and self development, his passion for knowledge, continuously sharpened his understanding of his situation and the challenges at every point confronting his people; he brings with him in the narrative of his years in politics a sensibility tempered by this background. So this is not just a diary of his life, it is also an assessment and criticism of the choices made by him and his comrades at every turn of his almost thirty years in exile. His training as an academic and political researcher, his analytical powers, raise the level of the work into an intellectual resource in the general understanding of especially the years of the diaspora in the SA liberation struggle and modern world history.

The book is simply a laid back and unaffectedly informative good read.

Dettagli