So yes my friend reality for other people was so different to yours. You can and will never understand or comprehend how things were, if you did you would sing a different tune.

Even the richest, most well off black person could not vote, was treated like a subhuman, was not seen as a human in the eyes of the government or the country. It’s nice to be treated equally to everyone else, you know?

Level of school education that you took for granted? hello in some european countries schooling is totally free – here you have to pay towards it. and are you implying Europeans dont get a decent education?

And by the way, during apartheid I used to visit one of my friends who lived in a township in a hugeeeeee house and she had a full time maid and a driver…. and my relatives in europe have maids too – its not a south african phenomenon – the crap thing here is how some people treated their staff and underpaid them.

And I know of some indian businessmen who benefited BIG time and became super rich thanks to the apartheid-government – who really paid their black workers badly and were paid by the government a quota for each employee, and alot of indians became wealthy because they didnt have to pay tax under aparteheid – that is a benefit is it not?

All I was saying is that in my opinion we led normal lives and I think it was terrible what the white afrikaners did, I dont see living a normal life as a benefit of apartheid – we were lucky we were born white – but you didnt benefit from apartheid, you just got to live life they way everyone should have. I think benefit is really the wrong word to use, whites were lucky that they could have regular lives….non-whites had it bad…..

Hectic. Cos I wasn’t and I didn’t even get to go to a private school. I went to my amazing model C school that my parents paid for, we lived in an amazing suburb with a huge garden and a pool, I could choose between many sports, I slept in a bed in my own room, I had relative stability in my life. I benefitted from Apartheid, and it’s a fact that if I have kids they will benefit too because of the position and priveleges it gave me in life. White people in other countries who are average middle class people don’t live the way white South Africans live. People in Europe are shocked and a little disgusted to hear of the pools and the servants and the gardens and the level of school education that we took for granted. I had a better life than them and it was thanks to Apartheid and that’s all there is to it.

Great post. I was a kid when Apartheid ended, but I still benefited because previous generations of my family benefited. And I agree – we may not be personally responsible for the regime, but we should be prepared to pass along the benefits we’ve received to others because we can afford to do so.