My Experiences as a White South African With the impending passing of the world's beloved icon and hero, Nelson Mandela, whose courage and determination led to the end of Apartheid in South Africa, it is fitting for me to me to reflect upon, and share, my experiences growing up as a white South African under the Apartheid regime.
I spent the first 29 years of my life there before immigrating to Canada almost 40 years ago.
Mandela's impending death brings to the forefront his enormous accomplishments in a country that was filled with turmoil and hate.
After spending 27 years of his life as a political prisoner, he was released.
The world will never forget the sight of Nelson Mandela's historic walk to freedom.
In the country's first multi-racial elections, Mandela went on to become South Africa's first black President, from where he would lead the country into a brighter future, and to the end of Apartheid in South Africa.
The year was 1994.
What is Apartheid? Apartheid - an Afrikaans word meaning 'separateness'.
- was the name given to the policies that were designed to uphold white supremacy by legislating racial segregation in South Africa - a country in which the black population greatly exceeded that of white South Africans.
The Apartheid laws were discriminatory to extreme.
I want to share my personal experience as a white South African child living under the Apartheid laws in South Africa.
Learning Discrimination Our typically South African household employed two servants whose salaries were shamefully low - as was the practice at the time.
One of these individuals was a 'coloured' (mixed race) lady named Nancy Sampson, who spent 22 years of her life taking care of our family with the utmost love and devotion before she passed away in her 50's.
My story revolves around Nancy, because I believe that the memories I have of my relationship with her epitomize what later fuelled my hatred of Apartheid In my family there was never any discussion about the meaning or impact of racial discrimination in South Africa.
Apartheid was neither discussed nor questioned.
This was your garden-variety white South African family of yester-year.
As a child or teenager I did not possess the insight to remove the 'blinkers' from my eyes.
Only when I was in my 20's did I begin to awake from the slumber so ingeniously instilled in my family and me by the Apartheid regime.
I am deeply ashamed to reveal that I was a typical white South African - privileged and spoiled - who learned by example to treat with disregard, the needs and feelings of black people in South Africa.
I try hard not to think how many times, during my teenage years, Nancy asked me to stop what I was doing for a moment, in order to help her with something.
But how could I have helped? I was far too busy luxuriating in the pleasures reserved for white South Africans.
I loved this woman so much - my whole family did (and she knew that) - yet the South Africa in which I grew up did not teach me to look beyond my own self-serving needs when interacting with 'non-white' people.
I would never have dared to refuse to help a white adult! Living Quarters of South African Domestic Workers I cringe when I think about the ten-foot-square room in which my beloved Nancy (like millions of other servants) spent so much of her life - a tiny, dark, cluttered room with no bathroom...
a room which served as her bedroom, living room, kitchen and dining room...
a room located in the back yard of our lovely home (you know? the one with the swimming pool on the half-acre property?).
The vivid picture of these appalling living quarters remains indelibly imprinted in my mind's eye, and leaves me feeling heart sore and ashamed.
Entertaining spouses in this tiny, hopelessly inadequate room was frequently a recipe for disaster.
No household was immune, for example, to the frequent midnight police invasion of the servants quarters in order to catch a spouse spending a night with his wife - and arrested him (often brutally) because he did not carry his 'pass' (I recoil at the very use of that word).
Like most non-white South Africans with live-in positions, Nancy had a home to which she returned on her days off (of which there were so few, as was typical at that time).
One day I offered to give her a ride, since it was raining.
When we were almost there she asked me to drop her off a little distance away.
Not wanting her to have to walk in the rain, I ignored her request - but quickly regretted this when I realized that I had taken away what little dignity she could salvage, for her home was a small, corrugated iron shanty inhabited by who-knows-how-many of her family members.
I remember how, in earlier years, Nancy used to tell me (if I took the time to listen) that they were 'waiting for a "council house' - whatever that meant.
How would I know? I never stopped to ask! Of course, they never got this 'council house'.
Why, oh why didn't I hear the plea behind that piece of information? Why didn't I listen? Why didn't I try to help? Awakening Miraculously, in my early twenties, I began to emerge from my unconscious stupour, as I began to see and feel, at the very deepest level, the horrors perpetrated in the name of 'Apartheid laws' - from the self indulgent carelessness I had displayed, to the blatant cruelty with which the black people in South Africa were treated on a daily basis.
I remember reading a book written by the now-famous Afrikaner author, Andre Brink.
The book was called 'Looking on Darkness' (a brilliant and moving story of a 'coloured' man living under the Apartheid regime, awaiting execution for the murder of his white lover).
Deeply affected by this story, I wrote to the author to ask why he, as an Afrikaner who clearly felt such compassion for the black people in South Africa, chose to remain in South Africa.
I was honoured to receive a reply from him (yes, he replied!) stating simply that he felt he could do more by staying than by leaving.
? The classic 'Cry the Beloved Country' which I read many times, tore at my heartstrings, in particular the part where an older black man who is trying to find his son in the big city of Johannesburg, is addressed by a white man with the typically authoritarian contempt of the white-to-black communication of those days.
Yet the father responds with the polite subservience equally typical of older black men in those times - without the anger that the next generation justifiably experienced and expressed.
I can still touch on the painful feelings I experienced every time I picked the book up to read.
Yet, by my actions and inactions, was I any different? When I look back now at the selfishness I displayed towards Nancy, I wonder if she - like the older man in 'Cry the Beloved Country' - had any idea just how thoughtless and unkind my behaviour was.
Or was she conditioned - by the South Africa of those days - to expect and unquestioningly accept discourtesy? In acknowledging my earlier failure to challenge the glaring injustices of Apartheid laws, and in sharing my personal transgressions, I try to soothe my own inner wounds of sorrow and regret.
Whereas I have learned to forgive myself, the memories, when brought to the surface, still retain the power to elicit feelings of shame.
I am hard-pressed to believe that I was alone in the my lack of moral consciousness and blatant disregard for the needs and feelings of the black people in South Africa.
I wonder, though, if there are other current or ex-South Africans who have grappled with feelings of regret and remorse? Surely I am not alone in my willingness to acknowledge and reveal my iniquities? I was relieved beyond measure when my former husband and I finally made the decision to leave South Africa.
I was 29 years old.
It is now almost 40 years later.
Like most ex-South Africans, I carry with me a deep love for the culture of South Africa.
My home is adorned with beautiful African sculpture and art, and my insides melt when I hear African music, or watch African style dancing.
There is a part of me that will always be South African, and with that comes sadness about the person I once was.
I know that for our family, leaving South Africa was the right decision.
My biggest reward came in a strange package many years later.
My daughter, who was attending graduate school in Buffalo, New York, talked frequently about her close friend and fellow student, Sharon.
I met Sharon for the first time at their graduation ceremony.
Sharon is a black woman.
Her colour was of such irrelevance to my daughter that she had never even thought to mention it to me! My children are indeed 'colour blind - and I will never, ever take this for granted.
It is now almost 40 years since I left South Africa - a country forever changed because of one remarkable man.
As the world waits for news about Nelson Mandela, we reflect on this man who - after having spent 27 years of his life in prison - never became bitter...
a peace-loving man and leader par excellence...
a man whose death will be deeply mourned the world over.