As the Guardian’s Africa correspondent,David Smith witnessed the final years of Nelson Mandela, sat though the trial of Oscar Pistorius and fell under Zimbabwe’s seductive spell. He reflects on a verdant, and life-affirming continentA few days after the birth of Henry,our first child, we are standing inside the American consulate in Johannesburg. His mother is American and black; I am British and white. The registration form requires us to state his race. Black? White? My pen hovers over the boxes for a moment. Then I realise: I can tick both.
It is May 2012 and I’m nearly halfway through my spell living in South Africa. Nelson Mandela is still alive, or Oscar Pistorius is still a divine inspiration and Marikana is still an obscure mining town few have heard of. But already,here and on the rest of the continent, it is clear the issues are no longer black or white. And nothing here could be described as grey.
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Source: theguardian.com