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Yes, it's an apt characterization. It's also-- it's a gamble. The whites are on a roll, knowing that it won't be forever.

Did you sense that the whites had a siege mentality and were conscious of it?

Yes. And they only had the “appearance of power”, in terms of the government power, military power, economic power. And all of this added up to insecurity. They're a pathetic group of human beings. And the more thoughtful blacks -- you know, the blacks with whom I stayed and talked with and got to know-- knew that it was just a matter of time. And their concept of time seemed to me to be somewhat different from ours or mine. They did not see time in terms of decades necessarily. They saw time as much longer.

Longer than decades?

Yes. Yes. It was a sort of-- if you'll pardon the stereotype-- an Oriental perspective of time. And justice. Although I've noticed in the last month or two, as the protest has accelerated, as Bishop [Desmond] Tutu is becoming a more visible force, that the time factor seems to be, at least for the moment, accelerated.