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.

I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.

In the mind, in the heart, I was always home. I always imagined, really, going back home.

I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa and the people without even realising.

In the West the past is like a dead animal. It is a carcass picked at by the flies that call themselves historians and biographers. But in my culture the past lives. My people feel this way in part because death does not separate us from our ancestors.

The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us.

Be careful, think about the effect of what you say. Your words should be constructive, bring people together, not pull them apart.