Hurtling towards a nation’s future

THERE was one prerequisite for journalists reporting on Nelson Mandela in the heady and chaotic days after his release from 27 years in South African jails: A fast car.

From the day Mandela was released from a prison farm near Cape Town on February 11, 1990, the convoys ferrying him around the country travelled at breakneck speed — making it exceedingly difficult, and almost always illegal, to keep up.

As a white South African, I always equated the speed at which Mandela’s convoy travelled with his desire to bring reconciliation quickly to a racially divided country.