A lot of initiatives and new ideas in the history in my experience of the past fifteen years in this country, would … originate from civil servants, yes. There are a lot of absolutely intellectually brilliant people in civil service. Don't be influenced by what you see, when you're buying stamps or have to pay your electricity bill. There are a lot of brilliant, brilliant people in civil service … In my experience, the civil servants have played an absolutely fundamental role in this whole process [of political change] in the last ten years to fifteen years.

The government thought it could kill off dissent by exiling political opponents to Robben Island; instead, it merely succeeded in consolidating the opposition. But perhaps Pretoria gained, perversely, in the end, for generations of young hotheads got a sobering political education at what was known as “the University of Robben Island.” Those who entered the prison hating whites – probably a majority – emerged hating the system which whites had built, but not the race itself.