Description

There is nothing extraordinary about my story of family dysfunction and childhood abuse. Sadly, what happened in our home is no worse than – and even quite tame compared to – the horrendous suffering endured by many children in our country today. At least, as white children, we had access to escape routes, opportunities selected and reserved especially for our race in the 60s and 70s. Superior education and exclusive schooling just about guaranteed access to tertiary education – or a job, even with minimal further study or none at all. There was always an open door for a white person once he or she left school. With only very basic tertiary education, I was never without decently paid, respectable jobs – each one a good leg-up in experience and training, with work opportunities overseas too. Though we whites could seldom sidestep hard work, millions of people from other race groups worked even harder to get nowhere, continually treading the waters of poverty and hopelessness. A white person could be drowning in dire circumstances, but there was always the belief in holding your head above water, that more had been given to you, more was expected of you, that you had much more going for you. Apartheid floated many who would otherwise have sunk. I think I was one of them. What is perhaps unusual about my story is the surprising reliability of justice.