I agree that this book is not about me. It is also not about anybody but about the struggles and the stories of oppression, victimization, and apartheid. Unfortunately, these stories do not come by themselves but through people. It is people who are the custodians of the struggle experiences, and it is from people that such experiences can be elicited and presented for us and for generations after us to know and to interpret. The struggle was a situation that nobody chose but was an unfortunate result and offspring from the system that was meant to undermine the human integrity of others based on race and origin. I also agree that sometimes it provides a good platform to know the background of the author to understand at least why he has decided to write about the struggle and the manner in which he has presented the contents of the struggle. Of course, having been a contributor or a victim of the struggle myself may not necessarily qualify me to write this book, but it makes sense if you have to write what you, yourself, has been involved in-irrespective of the extent of your involvement. By reading between the lines, some readers would be able to create a picture of who this author is and be able to know certain perspectives about the author, which have not been obvious from the written words. I have to confess upfront that I do not own the struggle or the suffering. In fact no one does. However, the old saying that "when the sun shines into the ocean, it is each and every drop of the ocean that is responsible for the shine" gives me the bragging rights that I was indeed part of the struggle irrespective of how infinitesimally small I was submerged in the struggle. Perhaps I should take the opportunity to say that I am nothing but a droplet in the sea of all what could be written about the struggle. However, the great Greek scientist, Archimedes, in one of his famous writings, said these bold words: "Give me a lever long and strong enough, a fulcrum to support it, then I will move the world." The pen is the lever, and this book is the fulcrum around which the pen in my hand can convey the experiences of the struggle especially of those stories that up until hitherto were on the verge of extinction. The pen is my lever, the book my fulcrum, and equipped with these, I am poised to move South Africa forward-so I hope.
