Yes, I am very confused and I can never wrap my head around it. Of course, like the old saying goes, you had to be there to know what it was like. You know walk a mile in a man’s shoes (not that the masterminds of Apartheid did a lot of walking at all) blaa, blaa, blaa. So many of them, so few of us, so let’s protect our interests by using any and all mean of mental and physical abuse (let’s not sugar-coat it), so that ‘they’ don’t wake up one day and figure out that if they mobilize against us, sheer numbers alone would work against us and that would be the end of us as a people.

A bit of a heavy way to begin, but there are just some aspects of our controversial history that I still have trouble getting to grips with. I am one of those ‘see the flip side of the coin before you decide’ kind of people. I want to know what inspired the chain of thoughts that ultimately led to such insane laws? I look at children in a playground, watch as they run away from a child that has just ‘let out some unwanted wind’ (how diplomatic), and how they are ostracized for a little while because you don’t want to catch fart germs. Their logic, although loosely following the same rationalization as our past government’s, made far more sense then separating a beach!

Anyways these laws got in the way of friendships. I remember a white friend of mine telling me how she had to travel in separate carriages to her friend. There was her young black friend, not even 11 years of age, having to endure a fairly long train ride alone and afraid, all because of a law that just felt like black and white people shouldn’t even be breathing the same quality air, let alone share a cabin with black people. All activities that were planned had to be more thoroughly thought through than a CIA operation. Like a master chess player, you had factor in what could happen a few moves later, and make sure that you had contingencies in place. We became the dirty little secrets that our friends had. We usually slept over at their houses where we had parties, watched movies or any other activities that could be held at their homes because on their properties, we could be hidden away from those who believed that what we were doing was wrong.

Personally I believe the past is the past. Mistakes were made, not by the youth of my generation, but by the masterminds of Apartheid, those who believed in it and those affected by their negative propaganda. The cycle still continues today, although we are making sure that it spins drastically slower. I am shocked and horrified that we still have an Afrikaner only community, Orania, where they are practicing petty Apartheid by default. There’s a fact that they might find strange, but which in all actuality is true and that is that we can actually learn from each other’s cultures. It’s something that the planet, in this century, understands very well. Surely Orania is on a certain path of becoming a community with the highest level in inbreeding in South Africa, albeit a title they may already have (which would explain a lot)?

So this time I spoke less about how this affected me, because why should it be me, me, and me? I just took you through a journey that might just spark thought or arguments that I would love to hear. This was one of the most baffling aspects of Apartheid rule, and in talking more about it, hopefully I’ll get to know and better understand it, even though it still will not make any sense.

So my challenge to you is what do you have to say?