I have realised that my problems are partly due to some misconceptions, particularly when worrying about 'white guilt'. While I know I shouldn't feel it, I have had trouble not to. While chatting to someone a few nights ago he pointed out that when he was a kid growing up at the end of apartheid in the townships, he saw some pretty horrible violence committed by black people. He then concluded, that the notion of 'white guilt' is silly because the guilt is only tacitly divided along race lines. A more accurate description should be 'apartheid guilt'. This is a similar conclusion that our Truth and Reconcilliation committee came to and sought to allieviate.

My next realisation was that the 'white South African' is not the only colour group going through an identity crisis. This was pointed out to me while reading an article in the excellent new Bl!nk magazine about a coloured person's identity. The people the author was writing about were going through very similar troubles as we were. (I would like to reproduce parts of the article here, but I have to wait for an issue to reach Grahamstown). One such problem was that they didn't identity with the percieved and portrayed coloured culture, you know, the 'bergie' with no front teeth smoking mandrax. Similarly I feel I don't identity with the northern (Jo'burb) suburbs WASP. Both of these generalisations cause us to forget that there is a large group of coloured and white people who are somewhere in the middle with their own culture. What's important is our heritage and not necessarily the common cultural values we share, which are generally very vauge and specific to many small groups.

In that case I am proud of my new South African heriatage: the mostly non-violent end of apartheid, the TRC, our fledgling democracy, our progressive constitution, our socialist policies, our sporting achievements, our people and all of their cultures.