Allister Sparks: Become activist citizens in this polyglot village of ours
I come to you not as an educationist or a vocational specialist to tell you how to get on in you careers. I am a journalist, a news hound. Have been all my life. I joined my first newspaper 66 years ago — I guess that was before many of your parents were born. Makes me feel a bit like Methuselah. So what has this old fogey got to say to you? Well, if journalism does anything, it pitches you into the vortex of life. You meet a huge range of people, from kings to crooks, and you witness the passage of events from close-up. It’s life at the rock-face. And in the course of that you get to know a lot about life. In bits and pieces, I guess. It is said that a good journalist gets to know a little about everything, and a lot about something. In my case, I suppose, what I have come to know a lot about is the turbulent history and politics of my own country. I have witnessed the rise of the extreme racist policy of apartheid and seen its collapse. I was there as the great Nelson Mandela gave...
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