“The idea that you come into the non-racist society as you are. You do not shed who you are. You do not shed the aspects that constitute you as somebody with a history, with a culture, with a presence that is particular. So if non-racism is seen as a powerful instrument for destroying the instruments of political and legal Apartheid I think South Africa has been spectacularly successful. But if non-racism means eliminating race as an element in public life that keeps people apart that creates suspicion or pain or anger then it has been far less successful. The next generation are picking up the remaining elements of white hegemony, with an assumed sense of superiority and white living conditions. There is no ‘one size fits all’ in relation to anything in South Africa. Everything is jumbled up and mixed up. When the shackles of overt racism fall the pinpricks of covert racism hurt unbearably.”

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“My grandmother was a Voortrekker, she was in a concentration camp as a child. The British burnt all the farms. My husband worked for the Apartheid government. He was involved in some of the forced removals under the Group Areas Act. You can’t inherit the sins of the past. I have to be different. Everyday more and more I realise I have to listen, listen, listen to what people say.”

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“The school I went to was very Afrikaans. I was never really accepted in the community, because we were foreigners. They made you feel inferior. I did my stints in the Army, in the Border War. Not pleasant memories. It was compulsory, otherwise they would have put you in jail. From childhood, they messed with your mind. When Nelson Mandela first came into power, most people of my generation thought they going to come and burn down our houses and there was going to be a war. A lot of my generation who went through all these things during the Border Wars. So many of those soldiers could not cope, after what they have seen and what they have went through. Feelings of guilt. A lot of drinking, divorce. Apartheid fell away. There is still huge division and a lack of understanding. It is not this school that changed my life. It is the people from within. The children changed my mindset in life. Every child is born with just love, if a Grade 1 child comes in here and they hug you full of admiration you give that love back to them. I am actually a very blessed man.”

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“It was hugely presumptuous of Livingstone and Stanley and King Leopold in particular, to use the idea of a primitive people with no class or no culture that needed to be saved from themselves. It is just so ridiculous. We are still suffering from that in Africa - with the idea of the ‘dark continent’ still prevalent. It started with those early missionaries and explorers. It started with slavery. That stigma is still attached to Africa. I think, if we as white South Africans have a historical debt to pay, then everybody that was connected to the slave trade has a debt to pay. A conscious, emotional debt.”

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“I am 50. My father’s side were poor Afrikaners from the Karoo, they lost their farm in the 1930s Depression. My mother’s side are an eclectic mix of Chilean Scots and Anglo Irish. I am told one of my ancestors was a Cape Rebel so he joined the Republics against the fight against the British Imperialists. I moved to London and started working as a tree surgeon in London to support myself and met other conscientious objectors - we were part of an organisation called the Committee of War Resisters. Then Mandela was released and we were sent home on an aeroplane paid for by the UNHCR and paid R500 a month for the first six month to resettle. The ANC at that time was very different, compared to the alienation, ethnic chauvinism and nationalism that we see now that seems to characterise both sides of the political divide. My own personal process of then becoming a landowner and a boss - I employ over 20 people and almost all of them are people of colour, had been further entrenched into roles kind of laid out for us. I find it very challenging. I love being an employer, I love the fact the average educational level of the people working for me is 2-3 years of school, yet when they have worked for a few years their body posture changes, their skills set is exquisite. The negative side is the way you feel like you are in a role that Apartheid ordained for you. The challenge is to be a decent person with it all. I have no guilt. I have gratitude. Entitled white South Africans are some of the unhappiest people I have ever met. There is a low level of despair that goes through every moment in this country since the dream was deferred, since Madiba and the Rainbow nation were consigned. I cannot imagine living anywhere else. In the 80s when I was young I honestly thought these f**ckers would keep us under their jackboots until we died. We are privileged verby, it is beautiful and sad and all of that at the same time. Elation and Despair.”

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“I am completely in agreement with the concept of white privilege. You can sit in restaurants especially in Cape Town and think to yourself what island between Europe and Antartica is this? What strange place is this? White South Africans have been thrust into a vortex of black pain much quicker than other parts of the world like England or America. These stories are being told now, they are out there, the sheer pain that Apartheid wreaked on this country. It is generational pain. That stuff is being laid bare in South Africa right now. A lot of the problem of the bubble that white South Africans sit in, is simply because of a lack of understanding of history. There is a complete lack of understanding of what actually happened. It is about understanding, it is about seeing what has been unseen for so long.”

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“I was born in Durban in 1969. I am a Twasa - a trainee. I speak Zulu and am learning to speak Xhosa. I’ve been told many times walking in different circles by traditional leaders that this should be my path but I brushed it off. Maybe if I didn’t live in the Eastern Cape I would not be following the sangoma/traditional leader path. Perhaps I would be doing something else. A lot of what ancestors are asking us to do is to complete things that they never finished in this realm. Hogsback is definitely still a white enclave, and I feel more aligned to the Xhosa people on the mountain, especially going to all the different traditional ceremonies. We are already 24 years into the new democracy and not much as changed. The scars of the homeland of the Ciskei are still present, the Frontier Wars and the English coming and burning all the fields - it’s really hard and it is mostly the Xhosa people in the region feeling those scars. There is a such an imbalance of understanding and empathy for the people who work in our houses on a daily basis - what they actually go through. White privilege is horrific, I sit here with it. I work damn hard for my money, but it is easier because I am white. You have an unfair starting block without a ball and chain. I went to a good school, and had a good education. I feel like I belong in South Africa, I am third generation born here. I think it’s a place where we can all live closely together but we need to be more understanding of one another’s situation. We really need to have people in this country who want to build it and make it a better place. We need to correct the injustices of what has been done.”

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“I suppose the only glimmer of hope on the horizon is that we as whites only make up 8% of the population so we are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Except that we own so much of the economy. The population of white people during Apartheid was 20%. Genuine reparations and a white tax would have made a fundamental statement and should have been linked to an apology. I was brought up as a Catholic. You go to confession. You confess your sins, you do your penance. It should have been linked with that process, not just taxing white people, but making it clear that we are paying reparations for the sins of our ancestors and our own sins. The BEE codes as they are, haven’t really helped the process of transformation. If you look at the Employment Equity Commission report for example. This time last year the top three levels of organisations were dominated by white men. This year the top two levels reflect the same demography.”

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“I have survived unspeakable brutal violence in this country and as a result I have given myself permission to leave. But I belong here. This is where my roots are. This is where my relationships are. This is where I am woven into. I am not woven in anywhere else. It’s actually just that simple. Because I choose to stay, I have a responsibility and a desire to make things better. I feel like we all do, in whatever ways are available to us. It starts with reflecting on our way of being, and how we relate with one another. There are things not within my power to change and that’s okay. But I need to do what I can, no more no less... And that ripples wherever it ripples.”

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“I’m 16 and I’ve lived in Cape Town my whole life. My mother is American my father was born here. I feel a big responsibility because I am white. There are things I need to change. I feel a big responsibility when people are crying out to be heard, I need to seek them out and listen to them and hear them. I must draw people into the wealth that I have inherited and the land that I have inherited. It hits me how little I have had to do for what I have. In terms of historical debt we cannot put a numerical value on it. White South Africans need to do that - share wealth, share land, listening to others, being humble... Right now I am seeing a lot of white people escaping South Africa to England and Australia. I don’t want to do that. I have a responsibility to be here. It will be scary but we have to face up to the past, otherwise nothing is going to change. Also, where would I go? I can stay here and face what I have inherited or I can go to America and face everything there... there is nowhere I can run to.”

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