In the eyes of apartheid’s victims, that is, South Africa’s traumatic history has never been fully integrated into the life of the nation: it is not without reason, therefore, that sections of the public continue to call for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission ‘2.0’. From the perspective of a psychoanalytically inclined psychotherapist, a case can surely be made linking this dissociative amnesia to our propensity for committing and repeating the kinds of acts that are considered heinous by any moral yardstick - all in all, an unconscious attempt to master the original traumas inflicted by colonial and apartheid rule.

The only certainty, to restate Baldwin, is that nothing can be changed if it is not confronted. By showing up and not retreating, by engaging and not dissociating, by searching for and not giving up on one another, we give ourselves and the generations to come the best chance of living with - instead of being lived by - our trauma. History cannot be overcome but, instead of carrying it on our backs, labouring under it, we can learn to walk beside it.

“My father would always tell me, “Mokgadi, a White man will always be a White man.” As I got older and came into contact with more people from around the world, I would tell him that the world had changed. That there were plenty of good White people, that Mandela had helped change our world and that things were moving forward. And my father would just repeat himself, “Maybe so, my child. But you must never forget. A White man will always be a White man.

He used the analogy of someone wearing sunglasses to illustrate his point. The sunglass wearer does not mistake the distorted color for reality even though things appear rosier when seen through their lenses. We are like a person wearing sunglasses who has forgotten they are on, taking what we see for granted rather than understanding that we are laying a scrim over it. The self exists, but not in the way we ordinarily take for granted, he seemed to be saying. We have to put it to good use rather than trying to shore it up or, alternatively, tear it down.

Chapter 1: Umntu Akalahlwa: The Months Before

“It wasn’t enough to see that something was wrong, her grandfather taught her. It was imperative to do something about it.

If you ask my mum today when she first became aware of apartheid, she will tell you it was a teenager, when she became involved with the Black Consciousness movement. But some of her earliest memories are of white police raiding homes in her neighbourhood looking for Black men who did not have permission to be in the area. At eight years old she watched as long lines of men shackled to each other were forced to walk the streets of the township, before being loaded into police vans.