Response/Input on the Occasion of the Beyers Naude Memorial Lecture

Abstract

"As a high school teenager roaming the streets of the Steenberg/Retreat townships in Cape Town I found myself dodging recruitment from the Ugly Americans (a Cape Town gang, not the Bush Administration), on the one side, and the local evangelical church, on the other. It was during this time of wandering that a friend nervously and with ample warning gave me a copy of the banned publication Pro Veritate and it made a significant impact on my life. Through this publication I met Oom Bey, and I can say confidently that his testimony as a white Afrikaner saved a generation of angry, black youth like myself from the self-destruction of reactive racial hatred. Ek wil net vir Tannie Ilse se, baie baie dankie vir hierdie wonderlike man wat u met ons gedeel het. U sal nooit verstaan wat ‘n groot impak hy op duisdende jong mense van my geslag gehad het nie. I wish to declare seven theses in connection with the theme of this Lecture, Access, in the context of higher education."(pg 1)