Long road to liberation

An exiled Namibian activist's perspective

Hans Beukes

In the late 1950s Hans Beukes, a native of the then South West Africa, was a student at the University of Cape Town when he won a 'solidarity scholarship' tenable for three years at the University of Oslo in Norway. 'At your age, Mr Beukes, his professor in Constitutional History told him, 'it ought to be an adventure.

And so it turned out. As he was about to board an ore carrier bound for Oslo from Port Elizabeth, the South African government confiscated his passport. Back in Cape Town he met an American activist who would become a key figure in the US Civil Rights movement. Allard Lowenstein had no words of comfort for him, but a challenge: 'Unless some of you are prepared to leave the comfort of your homes to go to fight the regime on the world stage, where they now monopolise opinion, you can forget about getting rid of apartheid.

Beukes accepted the challenge. Thus was launched 'the Beukes case' in the annals of the international tug of war about the future of the Territory that would become Namibia.

The author paints a memorable picture of the protracted struggles against the apartheid government, and of the ceaseless work done in mobilising international public opinion against that repressive regime.

"The author takes us on a trip from the rural enigmas of development and stagnation in South West Africa to the political heart of South African apartheid.

Professor Mburumba Kerina