Removing Yourself from the Personal: Review of ‘A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid’

There is a scene during one of their prison interviews, where the author reaches out and touches de Kock’s hand in an attempt to comfort him. Innocuous you might think, but if we are to take Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela seriously – and her constant assertions of expertise and authority – then how should we approach a claim like this: “Something odd did happen the morning after the interview. I was awake and lying in bed. Then it dawned on me that I couldn’t lift my right forearm. I immediately ‘knew’ why. It was the same hand with which I had reached out to consolidate de Kock, and now it had gone completely numb”. If true, then she has, astonishingly, stumbled onto a brand new psychological phenomenon… or perhaps an old one – solipsism. But let me be the first person to say it out loud – I don’t believe her!