Into Exile and Back

Simon Zukas is one of a handful of white settlers who played a significant role in both anti-colonial and postcolonial politics in East and Central Africa. He has been involved with the country for well over fifty years, and is today still chairman of an opposition party, the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD). His autobiography provides an account of his Lithuanian and Jewish childhood, his family’s flight from the pending holocaust in Europe, his remarkable struggle to adapt to a new society and involvement in Marxist and radical politics in Cape Town. It details his experiences in a Livingstone gaol, and deportation to London where he provided a haven for anti-colonial activists. He describes his role in the post-colonial society, his ambivalence about the popular but anti- democratic one party state, implemented by Kaunda, and his role in opposition politics and stints as a government minister in the post-Kaunda era.