Apartheid

I avoid topics that remind me that the people I love may die. I think it is natural. One topic that always takes me to traumatic scenes is my childhood. I didn't suffer, but it reminds me of the time I can't recuperate. I complain, I demand, I am human.

The book Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane reminds me of how lucky I have been and how stupid my complains are. I had my fingers crossed as I opened the first page of the preface. I was wishing for a good book. That means a book that transports me to another world. That helps me escape my own boringly dramatic life. I knew from the speed of my reading that I was starting to like this book. Liking the suffering that it brought me.
I was faced with a reality I knew little about, even though I have read about it many times: Apartheid in South Africa.
The author managed to transform his fears into written words. I can picture this process as something similar to a candle melting under its flame. Well his melted words burned me and I too felt his fear. In the preface he said "In my childhood these enforcers of white prerogatives and whims represented a sinister force capable of crushing me at will...", the feeling of fear he had is stronger than any fear I have had. Yet, I understand it. How can I understand a feeling I haven't had? Well, that is the magic of a good book.
As odd as this may sound I feel like a kaffir when I read. I understand that "[in Africa] to be black is to be at the end of the line when anything of significance is to be found," and that fills me with anger. No one should feel like a left over. Cruelty should never be tolerated.
Mathabane doesn't exaggerate his story, he is not begging his readers to feel hatred nor dissapointment. Mathabane kills us with clear and simply described memories. We feel the hot wax of his burning candle and we ache. I ache as if I were him.

I am being transported and I consume this book eagerly.