As someone who sits strangely in the middle of 'us' and 'them', it has been a frequent topic for me to talk about, but black and white is so much easier to see than the deeper subtler forms of otherness, and two minutes isn't really quite enough time to do the subject justice.

So a black man once again sits in the seat of regional power in South Africa, but the tribe which he leads is of a very different complexion to those of the lands which were once conquered by the white. Mr. Mandela has made it clear that he doesn't lead Black South Africa, but Multiracial South Africa. Multicoloured, black, brown, yellow, pink and white, Multifaith (there are many muslims in the ANC), and also Multicultural.

But how does such a strange phenomenon as apartheid come about? Does it begin with that common human need to define ourselves in terms of what we aren't, so much easier than thinking about who we are. We may not know who WE are, but at least we know that we're better than THEM.

Does that thought move through school and workplace, surfacing as football hooligan or religious bigot, as with the colonist justifying his right to privilege, by asserting that some "other" humans are by nature less worthy, less human, and so can be enslaved. Afraid of facing our own inadequacies and injustices, we belittle "the other", the one we define as different from us. At its most extreme it turns into a holocaust, and can be seen in any of the genocides that are taking place today.

That fear of "the other" can often be seen in Christian/Muslim relations. It's still possible to come across skirmishes lingering on from the Crusades. But differences in belief are much less apparent, and even harder to define than skin colour, so it sometimes takes the extremes of racial lunacy for us to see the appalling logical conclusion to our fear.

"Never shall this beautiful land experience the oppression of one by another" said Mr. Mandela, after having said "So help me God" at his investiture, and with a dream like that he will need all the Divine help he can get.

But South African muslims know that Muhammad asked the freed black slave, Bilal, to call the people to prayer, and the echo of that call can still be heard across the rooftops each day from the mosques of South Africa, as well as the rest of the world.