I didn't actually realise what apartheid meant. I'm probably a bit naive, but I thought it was more of a vague segregation, like on the beaches and buses.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As a young woman, I attended Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa, which was then not segregated. But I witnessed the weight of apartheid everywhere around me.
Now, of course, we know there has been an end to apartheid in South Africa, but what excited me was seeing it in the context of history.
While apartheid was in operation, the set-up was a gift for writers if you were looking for a big theme.
Apartheid - both petty and grand - is obviously evil. Nothing can justify the arrogant assumption that a clique of foreigners has the right to decide on the lives of a majority.
In my many trips to South Africa, I have met and spoken to a lot of people there, and they all seem to find apartheid as repellent as you would.
It may be that apartheid brings such stupendous economic advantages to countries that they would sooner have apartheid than permit its destruction.
Apartheid does not happen spontaneously, like bad weather conditions.
The structure of apartheid is still rooted in the Haitian society. When you have apartheid, you don't see those behind the walls. That is the reality of Haiti.
Apartheid either is or is not. And it must not be.
I've never doubted that apartheid - because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil - was going to bite the dust eventually.