I have to go and say farewell to all the countries that I have been to, if I can. I am 73 now, it is taxing on me.

I have one thing in common with the emerging black nations of Africa: We both have voices, and we are discovering what we can do with them.

It's a really unfair world because life is, where I am; all day long we listen to American music. So I don't see why the radios in the U.S. cannot even put aside one hour a day just to play music that is not American.

If given a choice, I would have certainly selected to be what I am: one of the oppressed instead of one of the oppressors.

I look at a stream and I see myself: a native South African, flowing irresistibly over hard obstacles until they become smooth and, one day, disappear - flowing from an origin that has been forgotten toward an end that will never be.

And I believe that it becomes a troubled continent because there are those who must always cause confusion so that we do not keep these natural resources.

Everybody now admits that apartheid was wrong, and all I did was tell the people who wanted to know where I come from how we lived in South Africa. I just told the world the truth. And if my truth then becomes political, I can't do anything about that.