Soweto, My Love

by Molapatene Collins Ramusi, Ruth S. Turner

Traces the emergence of the South African resistance movement as seen through the eyes of the author, a legislator working to end the apartheid system and a colleague of Nelson Mandela

262 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[William Boyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soweto, my love is a passionate and true story of a man embroiled in his people’s fight for equal rights, and what he produces is a powerful story about fighting against injustice and oppression no matter the consequences. The author grew up in a tiny village in South Africa, but his village got enough money to send him to school, and after fighting through hardship he made it to Johannesburg, eventually becoming a lawyer and taking on cases to fight for his people’s rights against corrupt judges and districts. His action gained him recognition by African freedom groups, but grew the ire of the National Party, and because of fearing for his safety, he had to relocate to the United States, where he had to hear of his wife dying back home. His book ends before the fall of Apartheid, but I can only imagine how cathartic that must have been for him.

For a book I just picked in a library from an author I had never heard from, this book is a passionate tale about injustice and the struggles to overthrow unjust systems. The author perhaps had it better than some, but he chronicles the murders in the Soweto massacres, as well as the atrocities committed elsewhere in South Africa, and the stealing of his people’s lands for white use only, where they were forced to move into “Bantu lands”. The authors story is pull of pain, with many around him dying in the fight for freedom, but in the end they were victorious.

The book is written very well, with vivid descriptions of the life of the author, that goes all the way back to his life in a small village as a young child. How accurate all of his memories are, I have no idea, but if they are accurate then it paints a full tapestry of the life a revolutionary. I could feel the anger he felt, the pain, the anguish, and that’s how you know a book is great. Everyone knows the Apartheid regime was unjust, but not everyone seems to have a fully negative view on them, which is the same as supporting the Confederacy in the United States Civil War, morally and intellectually wrong and only pursued because of underlying racism in the person in question.

The story slows down a little when he is in America, but it is still the best memoir I have read in a while, and his story breaths life into the subject, and the author deserves his flowers like Nelson Mandela and other freedom fighters have rightfully claimed. Even is the author will always remain unknown to the general public, his life will forever be memorialized in this book, and for that I thank him.

For anyone interested in the history of South Africa, Apartheid, the fight against Apartheid, oppression, injustice, and freedom, I recommend reading this book. While not nearly as impactful as Mandela or Gandhi, the author still played a role in his people’s freedom from the segregation and pain caused by Apartheid, and his story is very much worth reading about.