notes from 35,000 feet

I sat on the Boeing 777 en route to Dubai absorbing the shock of such an abrupt end to our time in Cape Town. Absorbing too some uneasy feelings that our lives had been changed but not knowing yet just how. For in this time of transit, I felt suspended between worlds high up in the atmosphere, the action of memory like a frantic random slide show in my head, disconnecting from one world, reconnecting with another, fragmented, dizzy and unsettled. Images of Gugulethu were disappearing in my rear view mirror while images of Skyreholme were taking shape on the horizon.

From the beginning, this blog has been about "the colliding worlds" that, among other things, make South Africa what South Africa is. The wound inflicted by apartheid remains open and ugly. In the main, black people bear this wound with dignity and generosity while they yet have to bear the burdens of poverty and inequity which remain fully fifteen years after the 1994 elections. Then, for the first time since 1948, coloured people were allowed to vote. Black people, who had never been allowed to vote, voted for the first time.

To a quite staggering degree, white people remain very rich in South Africa.

Black people remain very poor.

But there are other worlds in collision here. The coloured man who drove us to the airport says he has a daughter who was recently interviewed for a job in the civil service. The outcome - she failed - left him believing his daughter was "not black enough". Affirmative action, as it is known, favours the African, and African is defined as black. Not white. Not coloured. Black.

Anecdotes like this tend to give life to what, in the end, may be an urban myth. Another urban myth goes something like this, "black people cannot run the country, transition to black rule was too quick". But then a rich man disclosed to us his view that the ANC government has rescued the finances of South Africa. He believes they are financially more competent than the apartheid regime ever was.

Such is the view from 35,000 feet.