When my mother died July 1999, in Johannesburg, I was asked by the funeral director to make a speech at her graveside. It was usual, he said, to mention any good deeds she may have done. I lay awake in the dark early hours of the morning of the funeral, my mind filled with the tumbling images one has before such momentous occasions, trying in vain to organise my thoughts. My mother had been full of small deeds of kindness but would they count as good deeds in South Africa? She was born in 1908 in the Eastern Cape and raised in South Africa, spent all her life as witness to the violence and atrocities leading up to Apartheid and beyond. She had not risked her family or herself to ameliorate the lot of other lives. Yes, our house was an anti-apartheid house in that we talked a long and hard about the state of the country, shook our heads over the plight of the blacks, but only performed deeds that were risk free. We were bystanders in the land of the oppressed. We did not stand up against the authorities of the time.

In that country at that time, everything else paled into insignificance. My assertion is that South African race relations have a special quality, not only because segregation and discrimination were legalized through the system of Apartheid, but also because of how races lived so closely together. A unique feature of the lives of South Africans is the proximity and co-habitation of white and blacks. It is one of the most significant and distinctive aspects that separated and continues to separate South Africa from the other racially torn countries. Blacks make up 80% of the population in contrast to Australia where they constitute only 2% population. In the era of apartheid most white families had blacks as live-in domestic servants. Factors such as these, which could be class distinctions in other countries, had the added punch of having colour as a marker. Close mingling of everyday lives increased the propensity for intense feelings the races had and still have about each other. These include strong feelings of responsibility, guilt and shame, and love and hate. Race is never neutral. Race defines the discourse.

I immigrated to Australia in 1977. Ashamed of my origins, and my role as a bystander, which I did not understand then, I hoped to put my South African past behind me but like most pasts it would not stay behind me. At first, I was inflicted by a kind of xenophobia, a psychic numbing and I literally shied away from all things racial. It was as though my vision began to clear first with the release of Mandela in 1990, increasing with the dismantling of apartheid in 1994 and I have risked a deeper look at my own role and have gone back further in time and broader a field. One of the things I noted with astonishment was that South Africa was not the only country with racial problems and we now know with much sadness Australia has its own issues and is not quite the egalitarian multicultural land of the fair go we imagined.

The South African TRC was established as a means of easing the transition into democracy by beginning a process of healing. Both the perpetrators and victims of violence, the casualties of the fight for freedom, were required to speak their truths and the proceedings were aired on TV for the all world to witness. Some of you may have heard the grueling stories of violence and betrayal and been privy to the heartrending scenes of forgiveness, even as parents forgave the murderers of their children. An example was the story of Amy Biehl, an American Fulbright scholar who was murdered in the township of Guguletu. Four black men chanting "one settler, one bullet" stabbed her as she was driving a car in the township. Her parents forgave her killers and moved to rehabilitate them. The TRC provided the first platform for the voice of the oppressed. One of the key features in times of oppression is the silence. Is it that they do not speak, or is it that no one listens?

In 1996 a telephone survey to ascertain how white South Africans felt about the TRC, and also to assess their views on the social and political changes that had taken place since the end of apartheid in April 1994, was undertaken by the Centre of Violence and Reconciliation at the University of Western Cape. reported the findings in paper called A State of Denial and gave some idea of the figures involved. According to Theissen the survey indicates that only 20% of whites did not support apartheid during the apartheid era, and they voted for parties with a moderate positions such as the Progressive Federal Party (later the Democratic Party).

It is the members of this group who are germane to my study, those who opposed apartheid but who still lived it, those who cared deeply about the state of horror in which they found themselves, but were not prepared or able to take the steps and risks to actively oppose it. Even though they could not be called a homogeneous group it seems that they embraced liberal ideals. In times of oppression, genocide and human atrocities those who do not stand up to the authorities of the time have come to be known as bystanders. They are the ordinary people in the shadows who seem to be passive and indeed have been called apathetic. Currently, and in addition to my ongoing practice as a psychotherapist, I am working on my doctoral thesis, which is aimed at understanding the psychology of the category of bystanders. This involves interviewing those who lived through the worst of apartheid and beyond.

The term Bystander is generally used to show a kind of "turning a blind eye" to the plight of the persecuted, and has been elaborated mainly in connection with the Holocaust. During those bad times it seemed as though the vast majority of the population in Germany 'stood by' and did nothing while 6 million Jews and others where systematically murdered. These days the word is used to describe all manner of turning away, but in the main it means standing passively on the sideline and not participating or even ignoring the activity.

One feature of the South African TRC that has caused some concern was that it did not specifically address this category, the ordinary people who were not activists and were not directly part of the freedom fight. To my mind they were also part of the trauma and the system and need to be part of any reconciliation and I will tell you a story to show what I mean.

It is taken from the first of a series of interviews with white South Africans who have lived through the worst days of apartheid and have been part of its transformation into democracy.

In 1969 Sheila and her husband were living in London when she fell pregnant. Like many young white middle class South Africans couples they were trying another way of life, in another country far away from the totalitarian restrictions of Apartheid. However it wasn't an easy pregnancy and she was told to rest and not to work too much, so they decided to go back to Johannesburg to have the baby, even though they were strongly opposed to the Apartheid regime, which still gripped South Africa. After they arrived back in Johannesburg she was able to slow down and generally pamper herself in the few months before the baby was born. She and her husband employed a black maid, as most whites did in Johannesburg. This maid, Anna, performed all the domestic chores so that Sheila could get through her pregnancy with as little stress as possible.

Like most black maids at that time Anna lived on the premises. Blacks were not allowed to live in the cities and they needed a permit to remain in the cities to work and live on their employer's properties. The Afrikaners believed it was contrary to the laws of God and the natural distinctions of race and religion that blacks should be on an equal footing with whites. They also felt, one should note, that it was economically advantageous to have a policy of serfdom with the blacks which placed severe restrictions on their political and personal freedom. This kept blacks as second-class citizens and had the effect of dehumanizing them. In 1948 after the Nationalists came into power they gradually increased measures to ensure their leader Hendrik Verword's policy of separate development. Laws were used to enforce the system. Homelands or Bantustans, which consisted 20% of the land, were relegated for the blacks, and where they were deemed to live, even though most of them were born and bred in the big cities. The cities were reserved for the whites that made up only 20% of the population.

The conditions were difficult and unpleasant for domestic workers. They usually had substandard accommodation, with very little pay in return for their board. Usually they were given poor quality food, "boys meat' was the term used to describe the tougher parts of the animal that was rejected by the white customers for their own use, but bought cheaply by white "madams' to feed their servants. No visitors were allowed in their rooms after 10 pm. Early morning police raids were a common occurrence as police swooped in with little respect for privacy demanding to see who was in the rooms. Most domestic workers only had one day off a week, with the possibility of one over weekends to visit their own families.

It was in those conditions that Sheila; a schoolteacher went off to have her baby, Barry. In due course Sheila and Barry come home and on the first day Sheila, with the help of Anna, settled him in to his new home. Sheila, exhausted after the trip home and recovering from the birth, watched while Anna moved the heavy ironing board back into place and then prepared Sheila's lunch before leaving her alone so she, Anna, could go and have her lunch out the back in the servants quarters.

As she was resting Sheila suddenly heard a new baby's cry from the back, and was astonished to realise that Anna had given birth. Just then her doorbell rang as her own doctor came for a house visit and Sheila sent him out to see to the new baby. After a while he came in with a big smile. Mother and baby were both fine.

Anna called her baby Michael, and he and Barry grew up together. Sheila has sent me photos of the two babies sitting together on the rug with Anna, one black and one white. Two smiling and chubby babies, a picture of health and contentment. For several months all was well, Anna looked after the boys in the mornings while Sheila was in school. One day she arrived back from school to find the door bolted and Anna shaken and tearful. Apparently a neighbor had reported that there was black baby living on the premises. According to the Group Areas Act 1950, this was not allowed and a policeman had appeared and tried to remove the baby. Anna had managed to turn him away. However, eventually there were enough demands and threats from the authorities and they all knew the baby had to go. So Anna took the six-month-old Michael to live with his grandmother, a stranger to him, in some remote and barren part of the country, with barely enough food to support herself and him, while Barry continued to live in the lap of luxury in Johannesburg surrounded by loving parents and family.

"It was six months later that I came home from work one day only to find Anna sitting on the steps outside the kitchen. She was sobbing uncontrollably. Michael was dead. He had died of malnutrition far away from her in a forsaken part of the country.

Barry has grown into a fine young man with a Masters degree and very promising future. Somewhere in South Africa there is a little grave. In that grave lies the body of a black baby boy-a victim of the system known as apartheid."

This story is just one example of the trauma and everyday plight of white and black South Africans living under the same roof and under the system of apartheid and why reconciliation is needed.

For Anna the first order victim of apartheid, it is hard to imagine how she and others like her managed this trauma. Much has been written about the difficulties incurred by unloved, abandoned and unsafe and abused children it is not hard to stretch our imaginations to guess what it would be like to be the unloved child of the State because of the colour of your skin. We can guess how it might feel to know you cannot expect to any protection and how this and numerous insults may affect how you might feel towards whites. Blacks of the apartheid system are often portrayed as bursting and seething with hatred and anger. This demonizes the blacks.

Sheila the second order victim was also traumatized and silenced, fear prevented her from acting, though the question of privilege, self-interest and exploitation cannot be ignored. However, many of her acquaintances had been detained, imprisoned and even deported for opposing the system. Whites are often characterized as guilt-ridden racists, which alienates them. How to find a way through to reconciliation has been a challenge for South Africans, and here in Australia we struggle with similar issues. How to manage the legacy of the stolen children and the current horrors of Asylum seekers are just two examples.

I was asked to make some recommendations based on my research, and I would like to convey two different principles to you, theme of collaboration and the theme of empathy, self and the development of imagination.

The theme of collaboration was addressed so well by Sister Pratt in her keynote speech. People will be less likely to act against the prevailing authorities if they perceive that it will be dangerous to them or their families. If they feel helpless and don't know what to do, they retreat into passivity

That is why there is strength and protection in numbers. It is very hard to act from a position of isolation. So my first message is about the gathering of large organizations they can make a difference. A wonderful example is the ever growing Rural group who have organised themselves around the protection of Asylum Seekers. Those righteous gentiles who hid Jews, those slavs who opposed Milosovic all did so in systems that grew. The seeds for actions are sown in supportive groups. And it is action that is needed. Mandela, when he came here in the year 2000 to address a huge Melbourne crowd, said reconciliation does not only mean saying sorry, it means bread on the table of the poor, it means schools for the children it means hospitals and care for their sick.

As a psychotherapist I have a particular interest in the second theme, how can we help move our children and ourselves to a different level of awareness, imagination and empathy? Much of the neglect does not come from fear but from what has been called a failure of imagination, very often the oppressed seem to be dehumanized. For example the Jews in the concentration camps were systematically robbed of all identifying features, they had their heads shaved, were given uniforms, and number tattooed on them instead of names. It is harder to empathize with those who hardly seem human

There were echoes of this in South Africa. Servants had to wear uniforms; they did not live in their own homes so lost their identity and their humanity and dignity. Blacks were in very poor, wore tattered clothes, seemed to be forever standing in long queues waiting and waiting for public transport. It is a very important point that attributions follow political expediency not the other way round. In other words when we see someone wearing tatty clothes, unwashed, speaking another language, we tend to see them as different, not worthy of the same needs and care as us. It is easier to imagine that someone feels pain if they appear to be the same sort of thing that you are. The more people are different, the more work is required from imagination to know they suffer as you might. The more you can identify with someone the more you can imagine his or her pain. Skin colour, language, dress, culture and behaviors all help with identification

From birth and through schooling children it is important to give children the template so they are shown from the outside in, how it feels to be on the receiving end of respectful and imaginative care. What it feels like to be in an environment where it is the rule rather than the exception that someone has the tolerance and generosity to listen to their views even if they are different. Infant research shows that in early infancy a kind of pretend conversation goes on between the mother and baby, this is called a proto-conversation. Typically the mother guesses how the baby feels and speaks for it. You look cold, hungry, tired she says. You love aunty Jane, red flowers, mashed apples. Gradually the baby begins to respond and speak for itself and ideally the mother learns to listen and a two-way conversation begins.

Each of us has a unique way of thinking, in other words we are all different from each other. We understand each other by guessing, listening and testing it out then repairing if we get it wrong. This is the method of empathic listening. People need it like they need oxygen and this is how infant researchers believe self develops. We want our children to learn this method, so they learn to feel excitement if they are heard and indignation if they are abused. We need them to develop a strong sense of self and take for granted their rights as humans and know from the very core of their being if the human rights of others are being violated. In this way they can feel confident and clear about the need to listen and care and with the tolerance and generosity they have learnt from birth. And it is through organizations like this that they can understand the value of joining with others and move into action and away from the shadows of bystanders.