LITMIR.BIZ

       Acknowledgments

      The long-germinating seed for this book and, more generally, my interest in the nature of Coloured identity was planted sometime in March or April 1979 when, as a second-year history student at the University of Cape Town, I went on one of my periodic visits to Marie Maud’s office. Marie was a lecturer in the History Department, a colorful if somewhat eccentric figure. She was an inspired teacher who took a personal interest in her students and befriended many of them. Her office served as a congregating point for students where one could engage in discussion over a wide range of topics, particularly issues relating to contemporary politics in South Africa, over a cup of tea and a cigarette. By this time Marie had become a firm friend and a mentor despite my Non-European Unity Movement background teaching me to despise weak-kneed liberals. Marie might have been a self-proclaimed liberal but was not weak-kneed and did more than her share to undermine the apartheid system. On that late-afternoon excursion I encountered a forty-something first-year history student I had known for some weeks, in her office. He was a school principal from the tiny, conservative, northern Cape town of Keimoes who had taken a year’s leave to complete his Bachelor of Arts degree at UCT. With his very fair skin and red hair he was obvioiusly white. After chatting for a while the principal from Keimoes left, whereupon Marie, in characteristically melodramatic fashion, said, “Mohamed, I feel so sorry for that poor man!” Immediately there flashed through my mind images of him being diagnosed with a dreaded disease, being informed that his wife had suddenly died or that one of his children had been run over by a bus. Upon inquiring what the matter was, Marie replied, “That poor man is Coloured. Can you imagine what it must be like for him living in Keimoes?” Marie had inadvertently provided future direction to my research, for in subsequent years, pondering the vagaries of life for a pale-skinned, red-haired, Coloured person in conservative Keimoes played an important part in my choice of research topics as a postgraduate student.

      I would like to thank Richard Mendelsohn for his unflagging support, his wise counsel, and his incisive reading, as supervisor, of the doctoral thesis on which this book is based. On numerous occasions, I have drawn on the specialist knowledge of colleagues, and I have a memory of pestering Chris Saunders, Bill Nasson, Neville Alexander, and Satyendra Peerthum with esoteric questions. To these and others who have been willing to help, I am grateful. Special thanks are due to Robin Kayser and Shaheen Ariefdien for sharing with me their source material and research findings. I would also like to thank Colleen Petersen for her efficient and congenial help with a range of tasks. I am particularly indebted to her for being prepared to sacrifice time over a weekend to help me recover from a computer-related mishap. Many people, too numerous to mention here, have provided support and encouragement over the years. They have my undying gratitude. The efficient and courteous service of staff members at the African Studies Library at the University of Cape Town and the Cape Town branch of the National Library of South Africa is also greatly appreciated. I would, in addition, like to acknowledge research funding over several years from the

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