And then the unforgettable phrase: “You never regarded me, Dawid.” The deepest longing of the Afrikaner— to be regarded, by his community, his country, himself. To regard or disregard, probably the origin of endless destructiveness in South Africa.

“For us Afrikaans was a deed of rescue. You wanted to use it as well as you could to rescue yourself and other Afrikaners from poverty and misery. Teachers saw to it that we mastered scientific and classical Afrikaans. We had to learn Afrikaans poems and Bible verses off by heart, and so pure sentence structure and vocabulary were bedded in us. Anglicisms were like cursing. You delighted in storytellers who could play with language. They were heard again and again and their stories retold so often that the unique expressions were extended to everybody.”

In many ways, the trilogy formed a microcosm of the Afrikaner. He began poor and honourable, worked with his hands, had his feet on the ground. His women were attentive and indestructible like brushbush, his children dreamers and schemers. Then the Afrikaner started making money and became ashamed of his working-class background, and from there on, he often found himself in situations he could not cope with socially. He became corrupt and lazy. His women demanding and idle, his children swindlers, his politicians dumb, incompetent brutes.

One morning Breyten spoke to us: “You need nobody’s permission to join the struggle. Guilt feelings and self-flagellation are self-indulgent sentiments, but understanding of responsibilities gets you moving. It is in walking that you learn how to walk. Watch out for the exultation of the camel-hair shirt. Clean out the cellars, watch out for the corruption of suffering, of self-pity. Don’t go and sell yourselves as brave warriors. To be against apartheid is not heroic, it’s normal.”

With the black government being so corrupt— dear Lord— the amount of shame and embarrassment that it causes black people, almost a second humiliation after apartheid— I never criticise along with white people. Never. Even though I can see they want me to.