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Preface
This hard cover book, printed on totally
chlorine-free environment-friendly
paper, was published from the author’s
own funds and runs 406 pages, plus a two
pp. fold-in genealogy, and has 50 pp. of
photographs.
Farish Noor’s review reads: “U Ba Swe
then ‘logically’ asked what a
blonde-haired girl has to do with this
problem. It was a question that would
haunt me through all my life: Why? It is
not your bangsa – not your race – not
your problem. The time of insan, the
truly human being, is not upon us.”
Thus reads Alijah Gordon’s account of
her meeting with Burmese Prime Minister
U Ba Swe in 1956, during the Asian
Socialist Conference that was held in
Bombay, India. In this, the first part
of her autobiography, the scholar,
historian, activist and writer Alijah
Gordon traces her footsteps across
several continents – from North America
to the Arab world, to South Asia and
finally Southeast Asia – as she sought
to “crack (her) head on the reality of
the people rather than intellectualize
on socialism and revolution.”
With only a hundred dollars in her
pocket, the idealistic (though never
quiet) American student from Columbia
University embarked on a journey that
would eventually consume her entire life
and work, bringing her into contact with
some of the greatest figures of the
post-war and post-colonial era.
In Alijah’s narrative we encounter the
luminaries of Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine,
India and Burma: men and women like the
Egyptian historian Mohamed Shafiq
Ghorbal, Wing Commander Ali Sabri,
personal advisor to none other than
Gamal Abdel Nasser, himself, the
Zimbabwean nationalist M. Sipalo, the
Kenyan leader Joseph Murumbi, the
Burmese leaders U Nu and U Ba Swe, the
illustrious U Thant, as well as a host
of characters ranging from the
intellectual-activists of the Algerian
resistance movement, Ba’ath party of
Syria and the Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Muslim
Brotherhood) of Egypt, down to the
ordinary Palestinian peasant who braved
the barbed wire and snipers of the
Israeli army to serve a cup of coffee to
a passer-by, for “without their culture,
their adab, their politeness, where
would they be?”
Beautifully written, and backed up with
a plethora of footnotes and historical
references, it is an example of living
history captured in narrative form which
is increasingly rare these days. A work
that would resonate with other
like-minded insans who think of the
world as their home and the lot of
humanity as their own.
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