Hate Only Begets Hate

Last week in one of my classes I heard the story of a man who lived under apartheid in South Africa. He shared his story about living as the son of an honorary white woman, who despite the color of her skin was given special privileges because of her United States citizenship. As he matured he realized what the realities of life in South Africa were and began to speak out against the injustices that he and half of his country experienced everyday.

Because of his political views and his attempts to end apartheid his wife and three young children were murdered. When he arrived home to find his family dead he says he immediately decided to start using terrorism against the government who had taken his family away from him. He moved to a nearby country and received explosives training from Cuban guerrillas. After his education he returned to South Africa and began his life as a terrorist.

Eventually he ended up in Southern California and began studying at USC, still hating all white people. IT took a while but he soon began to see that despite the evils that the white government had inflicted on him and his family it was unfair to see all whites as evil.

He credits his peers at USC for showing him that his experience was the exception to the rule and thanked our class for proving this point again.

Hate is a feeling that is difficult to explain, but this mans story affirmed my belief that hate will only lead to more hate. He closed his story with this quote,

“The only person who is affected by hate is yourself, because half the people you hate don’t know you hate them and the other half does not even care”