PREFACE
My friend Elke Geising recently asked me how I was getting on with
writing my autobiography. Hearing this, Namhla Siwendu, a bright
young lawyer, enquired why I thought anybody would want
to read
my life story. This introduction is an attempt to
answer her valid
question.
I have tried to analyse how my four main identities
affected
my life and also how they have changed over time. The
first two
identities are ‘ascribed’, in that I was born with them –
being a white
South African, and being
gay. The other two identities – being a
Catholic, and being a social anthropologist – are ‘achieved’,
in that I
deliberately assumed them.
For nearly fifty of my eighty-four years I shared my
life with
Bernard Riley, whom I met in 1954 at the Tanga Yacht Club, in what
was then
Tanganyika
. So this is a love story, as well as the story of
our lives in three continents –
Africa
,
North America
and
Europe
.
I have tried to indicate the changing background –
how the world,
and in particular
South Africa
and other African countries, altered
dramatically during my lifetime and how this affected Bernard
and
me.
I grew up in
South Africa
in the 1920s and 1930s. Then World
War 2 took five years, including three as a prisoner
of war. Six years
were taken up by study at universities in
South Africa
and
England
.
This was followed by a period in the British
Colonial Service in East
Africa
for five years, in urban African administration in
Rhodesia
for three years, then by teaching and research at the
Universities
of
Ghana
and of
California
for a quarter of a century, and several
years of fieldwork in
Kenya
. We retired to
Britain
in the 1990s, and
finally moved to the new
South Africa
– for me, after an absence of
fifty-two years.
I consider here the many turning points I have
faced, when I
have been confronted with a choice. Looking back, I
consider that
I usually made the right choice, partly from good
luck, and partly,
I like to think, from good judgement. It was often
Bernard who
supplied the good judgement. At times I encountered
serendipity,
when I found myself in an unusual situation which turned
out to be
greatly to my advantage – or to both mine and Bernard’s.
Why Brokie’s Way?
‘Brokie’ – an affectionate nickname for many
members of my family – was used frequently by Bernard,
giving it
a special significance for me. And ‘Way’ signifies
both my physical
journeys and my way of life.
So, Namhla, to find out
if my answer is satisfactory, and whether I
have achieved my aims, you will have to read the book.
David Brokensha
Fish Hoek
Cape Town
July 2007
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