One man’s struggle for freedom and sanity

TITLE: Lest We Forget AUTHOR: Philip Kgosana REVIEWER: Thulani Mbele PUBLISHER: Skotaville Publishers

Philip Kgosana’s Lest We Forget is a genuine and different account about the life of an exiled freedom fighter for the liberation of black people in South Africa. Inspired by Robert Sobukwe, the former regional secretary of the PAC (Pan African Congress) in the Western Cape articulates with clear conscious his life and times in politics. These include his most famous moment when, as a 23year-old student in Cape Town, he led an anti-pass campaign in that city in 1960. This was nine days after the Sharpeville massacre.

He maps his escape to Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana and later Tanzania. Kgosana spells out personal battles he had in his struggle to defeat apartheid. He also reveals fights in his own political party where, after he refused to study, he was labelled a rebel and later expelled.

He lived a life of a vagabond with his family and faced financial hardships. Through Kgosana’s experience, the difficulties of life in exile are laid bare.

Kgosana lived through the dictatorship of Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia and the iron-fist rule of Idi Amin in Uganda.

Although mainly focused on his life, he avoids the temptation to criticise the PAC and the ANC holistically. Throughout the pages, however, we get a sense that as a banned antiapartheid movement, there was no cohesion within the PAC abroad. When the ANC was strengthening its international relations, theirs was an internal struggle for positions. He does indicate, however, that in the wake of Sobukwe’s arrest, it became even more difficult for the party to thrive. Phillip Ata Kgosana died in April, aged 80.