Brown speaks openly of the physical abuse intended to “fix” her, destroying any identity she had in a bid to make her less African. This procedure would decide where she was allowed to live, who she was able to marry, where she could attend school and even the job she could fulfil. She recalls the humiliating classification process where the colour of skin and coarseness of her hair ultimately determined her place in society. An unnamed character throughout, the author gives a deeply affecting account of racism and abuse perpetrated under the shameless regime. As apartheid tightened its grip on the nation, she was subjected to commonplace degradation simply for being black. At four the displacement from this family home began, as she was taken to live with various carers, each more damaging than the last. Born into a mixed racial heritage family she describes as a microcosm of the country’s wider society, her father was a larger-than-life character who ruled the home with a heavy hand. But what was it like to grow up in South Africa during this time? And did the abolition of apartheid really mark the end of the nation’s deep-rooted problems?Īs a child of the sixties in South Africa, Diane Brown’s upbringing was destined, like so many others, to be a story of survival. In the newly released book, The Sabi, Johannesburg based social reform advocate Diane Brown, recounts the struggle of growing up during South Africa’s ruthless apartheid, and speaks of the difficulties in breaking free of the terrible legacy shrouding the country.įollowing decades of armed resistance and civil unrest in South Africa, as well as rising international opposition, the apartheid government were forced into negotiation with the African National Congress … In February 1990 Nelson Mandela who had been imprisoned for 27 years walked out of Victor Verster Prison in Cape Town, a free man. South Africa’s black population hailed a sea of change after years of draconian segregation.
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