Acknowledgements
I am deeply indebted to my promotor, Prof. Dr Mineke Schipper de Leeuw, for her patient direction, encouragement and stimulating thoughts about my work and for never being too busy to listen or comment. I am especially grateful for her insight into and understanding of the several anomalies of my situation. Special thanks go to Prof. Dr Jakes Gerwel and Prof. Dr Elrud Ibsch for agreeing to act as co-promotor and referee respectively, despite their heavy academic responsibilities and busy schedules. Their comments were of much value indeed.
Prof. Dr Vernon February has not only been a friend and brother but a pillar of strength when I found it difficult to cope with the realities of living and studying in a foreign country. Penny Parker-Shaw of Petersfield, England, carefully proofread my work while at the same time offering valuable suggestions. I wish to acknowledge the continual support and encouragement of the South African community in the Netherlands, especially my comrades in the African National Congress. My sincere thanks and appreciation go to Olga Rees-Loff for her supportive role. When we were dreaming our dreams and hoping our hopes in those pre-fabricated asbestos classrooms in the searing heat and freezing cold of the Karoo summers and winters in the mid-1950s, did it ever occur to us that our paths would cross again in Amsterdam nearly forty years later? I wish to thank Mathieu Derckx for translating the ‘Stellingen’ and ‘Samenvatting’ into Dutch.
The group of promovendi under Prof. Schipper's direction provided me with many valuable insights during our animated discussions. Thanks go to them as well as to the Faculteit der Letteren of the Vrije Universiteit and the Rijksuniversiteit of Leiden.
The support and encouragement from family and friends in South Africa never failed to lift my spirits. Warm and special thoughts are of my mother who, like Ma-Rose, is ‘always there to return to’, even in flights of the imagination and our uncanny telepathy.
Due thanks go to the EOC-Vrije Universiteit Fellowship Programme and the functionaries concerned for enabling me to undertake this research in the Netherlands; the Africa Educational Trust in London and the United Nations Educational Training Programme for Southern Africa (unetpsa) in Geneva for additional financial assistance.
Amsterdam
September 1991
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