According to blacks, whites still actually control everything. But it is exactly at this point that one has to consider the different phases of reconciliation. Currently, South Africans seem to be further apart then before. Because the first necessary stage of reconciliation is withdrawal. The two nations are both affected, one by injury, one by guilt, and their first reaction is to withdraw from each other.
People withdraw physically or mentally from each other after injury.
We have heard in the Truth Commission how a mother says she doesn't want to even see a white person. We see people leaving the country or pulling back into their own family or group spaces and homelands. This withdrawal from each other may last a second or centuries, says Kraybill. But withdrawal is regarded as a necessary and healthy psychological response to injury. To want to be among the people whom you trust, whom you know will not injure or accuse you - that is a natural response.