In a reflective article on the tenth anniversary of the release from Robben Island of President Nelson Mandela, the distinguished South African novelist, André Brink, recalls a sense of existential disorientation when he noted a blank wall in the airport building in Port Elizabeth announcing ‘YOU ARE NOW HERE’. That was it: a blank wall, no map, no plan. It serves as a useful metaphor for a peace process. A certain amount of disorientation is inevitable, as is the roller coaster between hope and despair. For us the question is which one we ‘would choose to define ourselves by: the moments of light or the dark intervals in between. Perhaps neither should be thinkable without the other. If humanity makes sense, it is not because it is capable of the best, or the worst, but of both.’

Let that be our starting point. To start with a blank wall and the question ‘where is here?’ may be incredibly daunting; and ‘we may not be yet,’ as Brink asserts, ‘where we'd like to be, but at least we are no longer “there” any more. Most importantly, we seem to be on our way “somewhere”.’ Drawing on the small cell which Mandela occupied for 18 of his 27 years in prison, Brink concludes: ‘Our peculiar cell may yet expand to the dimensions of a larger and more human world.’