Memoirs of a Born Free
Reflections on the New South Africa by a Member of the Post-apartheid Generation
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Apartheid isn't over—so Malaika Wa Azania boldly argues in Memoirs of a Born Free, her account of growing up black in modern-day South Africa. Malaika was born in late 1991, as the white minority government was on its way out, making her a "Born Free"—the name given to the generation born after the end of apartheid. But Malaika's experience with institutionalized racism offers a view of South Africa that contradicts the implied racial liberation of the so-called Rainbow Nation. Recounting her upbringing in a black township racked by poverty and disease, the death of a beloved uncle at the hands of white police, and her alienation at multiracial schools, she evokes a country still held in thrall by de facto apartheid. She takes us through her anger and disillusionment with the myth of black liberation to the birth and development of her dedication to the black consciousness movement, which continues to be a guiding force in her life. A trenchant, audacious, and ultimately hopeful narrative, Memoirs of a Born Free introduces an important new voice in South African—and, indeed, global—activism.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Blogger, columnist, and activist wa Azania was 23 years old when she wrote this account of growing up as a "born-free" a member of the generation born after the end of apartheid in South Africa. She was disillusioned by the hardships young black people still face (for example, the "black tax": the need for her age cohort, the first in their families with some economic mobility, to financially support multiple generations) and by the ruling African National Congress's failure to live up to the ideals it espoused as a resistance movement. It is to the ANC that she addresses her story, which, she explains, is "about realising that liberators can and often do become oppressors." In the first section, she recalls growing up in a Soweto township, illustrating through her family's experiences what it is like to live in a society nominally no longer segregated but far from equal. She points out, for example, the institutional racism on display in the choice to teach using English and Afrikaans in elementary schools, but to offer indigenous languages only as an elective for high school students. In the second section, she recalls her entrance into activismwith groups like Blackwash and Economic Freedom Fighters. Unsurprisingly, given her youth and the movement's in-progress status, the narrative is written with little distance from the events described. This is less a traditional memoir than an often poignant real-time document of South African life.
