In rooms elsewhere in the country, others saw the statement and recognised it for the call to arms they had been waiting for. A fuse had been lit, setting in motion a chain reaction that none of them, least of all the group in Hillbrow, could predict or control.

1

Lesedi Motlantshe’s murder was one of those pivotal moments that seemed destined to change the course of a country’s trajectory. There are some events – a law passed, a speech delivered, a transgression exposed – which are deemed significant only in retrospect, like looking back on a life and realising the point at which things had taken a turn for the better, or worse. This was different. As news of the murder spread across South Africa, its people knew there could be no going back to business as usual. Lesedi Motlantshe was more than a man: he was an idea, a symbol, and with his death that idea had been tarnished.

Lesedi had been one of freedom’s children. Born in the eighties, his life mirrored the changes in South Africa as apartheid’s pernicious laws were expunged from the statutes. A quick and confident boy, he’d once been interviewed by a TV crew doing a piece on the role schools were playing in changing attitudes to race. The reporter had asked the class of teenagers to define racism. In a flash, Lesedi had stuck up his hand. He’d pointed to one of only three white children in the class and said: ‘Racism is like, you know, if I’m unkind to Darren and call him names – “Whitey” and so on.’

The clip had made it onto the evening news. This reversal of the conventional definition of racism – that white people could be the victims – from the lips of a black child seemed to speak volumes for the miraculous journey South Africa was making.

From that day on, Lesedi had become something of a celebrity, not so much teacher’s pet as the nation’s pet. His words were spliced into countless promotional videos produced by the government. He would be dragged out of the classroom to meet visiting dignitaries from China or Europe. A local TV station had adopted him for its ‘Children of the Future’ series, which meant he featured in an annual film tracing his every success (of which there were many) and failure (of which there were none). His progress in school, his three years at the University of Cape Town – all of it was chronicled. In short, Lesedi had become a national mascot – the embodiment of South Africa’s new beginning.

Now he was dead.