Sixteen years and a bit of education later, those years seem so preposterous. The feared Communists, for whom we waited in vain, were the African National Congress. They were making door-to-door visits in our area, which was an IFP bastion, and so in an effort to secure our votes, the IFP ran a very successful propaganda campaign against the ANC. So successful was their propaganda, that they have never lost the majority vote in that part of KZN.

I have never experienced apartheid in any form. I don’t even know what a dompas looks like. I grew up in a world where the ANC was the enemy, for crying out loud! I grew up amongst white people. Some of my best and most loyal of friends are white. I never ever got the feeling that I was supposed to be inferior to anyone. And even in school, when the other black kids used to mumble about ‘discrimination’, I had no idea what they were on about. I have an academic knowledge of what racism is, but I’ve never emotionally identified with the notion. I’m a black South African, but certainly not “formerly disadvantaged.”

This presents me with a dilemma. A few weeks ago, a white friend of mine called me ‘boy’ on my blog. I took it as a joke, made a snappy comeback and thought no more of it. Apparently the word ‘boy’ is laden with racial connotations, and another blogger rose to my defence and viciously attacked my friend for daring to insult me. I was flabbergasted. In the ensuing debate some bloggers lambasted me for refusing to take offence at this obvious racial slur. But the plain truth is that I certainly didn’t feel like an affront had been committed, chiefly because I knew my friend wouldn’t do such a thing. But I also didn’t feel racially slighted because I didn’t grow up under apartheid, have never been told that I am less than anyone else because of my skin colour and have never been discriminated against for being black. I have no experience of apartheid, petty or otherwise.

Apparently this is very difficult for older black people to understand. They don’t understand why I don’t read into every word that comes out of a white person, they don’t understand why I see nothing wrong with relationships across “colour lines” and they especially don’t understand why I think they are wrong for being so suspicious and sensitive. Don’t get me wrong. I’m in no way diminishing people who went through the horrors of apartheid. I am very proud to be a black South African, partly because of our struggle heritage. And I’m not saying that racism is now completely dead in South Africa. But I certainly don’t accept that I should now carry the pain of an apartheid past simply because of my skin colour. It is very painful for me when I experience “discrimination” from my own people, because I’m too young to have gone through apartheid.

Isn’t this what the struggle was all about? Isn’t that why Nelson Mandela spent all those years in prison, so that one day there can be people in South Africa who have no painful memories of apartheid?