Sipho Seepe reviews Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane SC's 'Odyssey of Liberation', a powerful memoir that reclaims the narrative of Black experiences in South Africa.
Although 'Odyssey of Liberation' is a memoir of a life well lived, it should serve as both a wake-up call and a call to action. Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic, famously argued that “until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter'. In his recently minted book, Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane SC has done exactly that. To tell his own story. For too long we have allowed ‘outsiders’ to be authors and interpreters of our life histories.
This book is bound to ruffle some feathers, especially for those who have claimed preserved right to set the terms of social and political discourse. With this book, Sikhakhane publicly declares to have left the plantation. Being a persona non-grata of the white establishment comes with a price. Sikhakhane is unfazed. After all, his life’s journey “has been fraught with life and limb risks, including attempts at tarnishing my professional standing. Sadly, this has continued under our much-vaunted democratic dispensation where state institutions are being used to harass and intimidate some of us who dare subject the current neoliberal dispensation to critical scrutiny.” This book will rank as one of the most consequential books of our time. It will find companionship with books such as Rolihlahla Mandela's autobiography. A book of this nature, which touches on every aspect of South Africa’s existential reality, would require more than one review. For convenience, the book is divided into four sections: The Early Years, Defining Moments, Trials and Tribulations, and Political Perspectives. This is deliberate. The profundity of each section stands out. To collapse all in a single review would do grave injustice to the weighty subjects. Each subject/issue is pregnant with lessons of life and profound reflections. This is a Magnus opus – one of the best-written works in post-1994 South Africa - about 'being black in the world'
AFRICAN HISTORY BLACK LIVED EXPERIENCES SOUTH AFRICA POLITICS SOCIAL JUSTICE
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