Al Noor Kassum, a long-time Tanzanian diplomat, government minister and public servant, joins a slow trickle of independence-era African political leaders who have penned their memoirs. Born into, and a loyal member of, the Ismaili community in Dar es Salaam, Kassum played a critical role in bringing support to independence and to Julius Nyerere's Tanganyika Africa National Union (TANU) during the run-up to Tanganyika's independence. He was duly elected to parliament after independence and served as both a representative of Tanzania and a civil servant at the United Nations. He came back to Tanzania to serve as a minister and head of several important governmental bodies. Along the way he devoted himself to the cause of education both for the Ismaili community and for Tanzanians.

Kassum's parents came from Gujarat to German East Africa. His father built a successful grocery business in Dar es Salaam and eventually owned the Avalon and Amani movie houses in the city. His father rose to become one of the leaders of the Ismaili community. Kassum received education in England and India. He became a lawyer at the urging of the then Aga Khan. On his return to Dar es Salaam at the end of the Second World War, he became involved in politics and, by the 1950s, after he had returned to Britain for a law degree, sat on the nominated Legislative Council of Tanganyika Territory. He met Julius Nyerere both in Dar es Salaam in the early 1950s and in Great Britain while both were studying there. In the late 1950s, he became one of the members of the Asian community that supported TANU and helped pave the way for independence. His election to parliament from Dodoma marked the victory of Nyerere and the non-racialists in TANU. He then served as a representative to UN agencies for Tanganyika and Tanzania and in the Secretariat of the UN. Nyerere recalled him to Tanzania at about the same time as the Arusha Declaration which resulted in the nationalization of a great deal of his family's property. He remained loyal to Nyerere and TANU and took on the responsibility of overseeing the nationalization of the largest diamond mine in the country. He then served in parliament again, as minister of finance and administration to the first East African Community, and as a minister for many years. He played a particularly key role in efforts to promote industrialization under Ujamaa. Since his retirement he has devoted his efforts to education broadly, serving as the first interim chair of the Nyerere Foundation and as chancellor of Sokoine University in Morogoro.

Kassum's memoir is eventful but not reflective. He uses correspondence from such figures as Nyerere, U Thant and others, as well as some official documents, to flesh out his account, but these focus mostly on his own attributes rather than the issues at hand. Even his victory in a libel suit against the British weekly the Observer, which had accused him of corruption in a complex oil deal in the 1980s that had shadowy ties to apartheid South Africa, concentrates on his own perceived victimization by the paper rather than the actual source of the allegation. Kassum comes across as a straightforward Tanzanian, Nyerere loyalist and Ismaili. He is undoubtedly those things, and his life is that of a man born to relative privilege devoting himself to public service. It is a shame, but perhaps too much to have hoped for, that he did not in his memoir devote more space to his perspective on the momentous changes he saw and in which he participated. His role as one of the earliest and most loyal Asian leaders of TANU itself merits more discussion. As well, his insights on some of his colleagues, about whom, aside from Nyerere, he says very little, would have helped us to understand Tanzania's struggles, achievements and failures better.