Revolutionaries

In recent years, I took up contact with "revolutionaries" in South Africa. This has been revealing, and very useful. I am thankful that they opened up the opportunity. I have found that there are things one cannot know, cannot understand, cannot even think -- until one has interacted with them. It opens up a different side to South Africa, too: there's the country we imagine we inhabit, but there's another level on which it operates, which is not the same at all, with both citizens and state acting quite differently. Perhaps one should say levels. "Revolutionaries" occupy one of those levels.

POSTSCRIPT: A lot of discussions are held in relative isolation: radicals isolated from moderates, the middle class isolated from labourers, youth isolated from experience, and so on. It is good for all sides where there is interaction.