The early winter wind and rain buffeted the canoeing clubhouse on Durban bay, in May 1996. Shouting and laughing canoeists line up for their weekly dice and race into the wind as the start-master sends them off. With their muscles straining and lungs bursting the top group sprint for the first turn. Some make the first bow wave and others battle behind.

Twice around the course in the bouncing waves of the silt canal. The power of the wind in their faces as they rush towards the harbour, and the runs of waves help them return.

The novices pat-paddle, in their ungainly way, behind the lead groups. They will be passed at least once on the 8km course. The turbulence is uncomfortable and the narrow hulls are highly unstable.

The multi-coloured long-distance kayaks each show something of the battle scars of river racing and the personalities of their owners. Some are in the magnificent colours of the South African flag and some in more traditional colours.

The reflected lights of the yachts and local industry are fragmented across the choppy waters, as the last crafts return to the start.

Later as some of the canoeists gathered around the bar, the alcohol began to loosen their tongues. Conversations went around the dice and who beat whom. Around sport and canoe races. And, as usual, politics and the new South Africa.

There was a lot of unhappiness with affirmative action and the way the new government was "doing" things. "The blacks are stuffing things up." commented a paddler.

A remnant from the past, laughed aloud and said, "We need to colonise this place all over again!" Yeah! Back to the colonies." joked another.

This was enough to set Dunks off. "Ja," he spittle-sprayed in rage, "this is all bullshit! How can they make a murderer the president. Everybody forgets that Mandela murdered people." He stared aggressively in my direction. Hoping that I would oppose his line of thinking.

I kept quiet and waited. There was more to come. He launched into a lengthy diatribe on the people of colour that he worked with and ended by saying. "I don’t hate the kaffirs. But the f...... coolies. Now them, I hate with a passion!"

"Everywhere you go some bloody charou is taking our work." Then he laughed, "How do you know when a charou is lying?" He guffawed as he answered his own question, " When their lips are moving!" A chorus of laughter greeted his joke, although many of the canoeists had physically moved away from his noisy prejudice.

I raged inside. "Dunks you are just a bloody racist. You can see no good in anybody but yourself." I had to leave before I made matters any worse.

The strange thing was that this man is essentially a good, kind and giving person. Always willing to help. Always there if you needed him. A good person. I drove home angry that night. I couldn’t wait to write down my feelings about this "kind" of person.

I was sick of racism. Everything that I had been exposed to, from white people, over the past few years showed "they" had a simple belief in the inferiority of anyone of colour.

I ran the scenario over and over in my mind. "Who did he think he was? What on earth gave him the right to behave in that way?" I was burning with frustrated outrage at his blatant bigotry.

And then a thought flashed in, "Does he think that it is his right? Or is that the only way of thinking available to him? And if that is the only way that he can think, where did he get his ideas from." Later as my anger subsided, my mind shifted, and I began to pity Duncan.

"Poor Duncan," I thought, "he is as much a victim of Apartheid as anyone else." It made sense. He is as much in need of help as anyone else. He needs love and even more so, he needs psychological help.

As was the case with most "white" boys, he was conscripted as a 17 year old youngster by the Apartheid machine. He had fought "terrorists" on the borders to keep his family and country "safe".

The very people who shot at him and ducked his bullets, were fighting for their families and their country, as "freedom fighters." Now "free" they called themselves victims of Apartheid.

Duncan’s father and uncles, and their fathers before them, grew up in a black and white world. In race-separated areas. They worked in positions "superior" to people of colour. Always the "boss" and always protected. In their world anyone who was not white was "sub-human". And he had grown up under their guidance, example and tutelage. What chance did he have? What chance did anyone have?

And as I began to type on my PC, that night of the 21 May 1996, this is what came to me.

Two victims sit, side by side.

One is black, one is white.

Both fought Freedom’s Fight.

Against each other,

through day and night.

The war has now past.

But the wounds they have suffered,

could forever last.

The scars aren’t upon their skin,

they now lie deep within.

Images of hurt, harm and pain,

torture their minds

and drive them insane.

As puppets dancing to yesterday’s beat,

their actions and words have racial heat.

Racists, Yes!

Consciously, NO!

Their strings are pulled

by governments past,

by rulers, by leaders or Mom and Dad ......

will YOU teach your kids to be as bad?"

And even now, one can look around the world at similar situations and brainwashing. It is scary and it is unacceptable.

Let it never let it happen again in our country. And let us be the universal example of positive human transformation.