The Republic of South Africa and I were born in the same year. Apartheid was 13 years old. It was 5 years since more than 20,000 women marched to the Union Buildings in protest of pass laws1 with a cry of, "Wathint" abafazi, wathint" imbokodo" [You strike a woman, you strike a rock²]. The apartheid legislation of the Nationalist government was effective not only in excluding the majority of South Africans from a wide range of human rights, but also in precluding all South Africans from having normal social relationships with one another.