John Carlin : Playing the Enemy

Stayed up all night finishing my first ever purchased eBook. Pleasantly surprised that reading a book on the small screen of the iPhone does not present any difficulty at all and really not much different from reading a normal book.

In 1983, I was in my final year at Warwick University. 2 of my hall mates at International House, Thomas and Andie (?) were from South Africa, both Afrikaners (= white). During one conversation that I can still recall very clearly now, they asked me what I thought of Nelson Mandela and if I was against apartheid, to which I replied "Don't know, too remote for me".  Thinking back now and having just read John Carlin's book, I am truly ashamed of my answer then. How disappointed the 2 of them must have been with me. What an ignoramus (in local lingo, a blur fuck) I was!

What was apartheid? (from the Nelson Mandela Foundation website)

"Apartheid was the official policy of the National Party, which came to power in 1948 in South Africa. It was the practice of official racial segregation. Under apartheid everyone in South Africa had to be classified according to a particular racial group. This determined where someone could be born, where they could live, where they could go to school, where they could work, where they could be treated if they were sick and where they could be buried when they died. Only white people could vote and they had the best opportunities and the most money spent on their facilities. Apartheid made others live in poverty. Black South Africans’ lives were strictly controlled. Many thousands of people died in the struggle to end apartheid."

Nelson Mandela is the man who changed all that for a country of 43 million people, through peaceful negotiations. And all that after being held in prison for 27 years. Living history. And the recent successful hosting of the World Cup in South Africa is made all the more remarkable when one reads about sports boycott of the country as recently back as 1990. (NM released from prison on 11Feb90).

Read the book. I highly recommend it. It will make you cry. But please don't ask me to send you the unlocked ePub file. My weekend project now - to watch the DVD.

My Rating : 4/5