Review article: Namibia's freedom struggle the Nujoma version

Saunders, CC

Review article: Namibia's freedom struggle the Nujoma version

Journal Article

2002

Journal Title

South African Historical Journal

Link to Journal

http://reference.sabinet.co.za/sa_epublication/sahist

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Historical Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

Historians of the struggle to achieve Namibia’s independence will welcome the appearance of this history of the struggle by the leading figure in the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO). That Sam Nujoma remains Namibia’s President twelve years after independence gives his book extra interest; his book was launched at the Katutura Independence Youth Sport Complex in Windhoek as the President turned 72. Whereas Nelson Mandela was able to bring out his autobiography in the year in which he became South African President, some of it had been drafted many years before while he was on Robben Island. By contrast, Nujoma was, it seems, too busy during the struggle itself to draft memoirs. But recently – using, he tells us, the time available to him from 3 a.m. to 7.30 a m. (Where Others Wavered, acknowledgements, unpaginated) – he has completed, with the aid of others, a book that some may now compare with Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom.

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