Kumbaya will not win freedom

HERE'S a sweeping statement. In any situation where there is a political or social conflict, those in power and benefiting from the oppression will try to reduce the conflict to something softer than structural injustice.

- ASHLEY GREEN-THOMPSON

Under apartheid, there were many groups, often religious, who would say that blacks and whites just needed to get to know each other. So exchange visits between the suburbs and townships (usually it was visits by suburban types to townships and not vice versa) were quite in vogue. I recall hearing about similar setups in the north of Ireland during the struggle against British occupation, where the cause of the conflict was often reduced to religious and cultural intolerance. Whole movements and institutions were established to facilitate the coming together of different communities, ostensibly to foster peace. If you looked at those situations from a distance, perhaps from another country, and you were concerned about peace for the people affected by the conflict, you would celebrate these comings together, or as the Afrikaans word more aptly describes it - toenadering.