GROWING up without a father in Korsten and being subjected to poverty and racism for most of his life, a former police station commander was prompted to write a book about his experiences and, after writing for 16 years and contemplating publishing of his autobiography for five years, his book is finally on the shelves.
Born in the midst of the Apartheid era, 60-year-old Paulus Antonio, who now resides in the US with his wife, Nola, said that he was basically homeless as a child because he had been displaced so many times.
“I grew up without my dad; I was raised by a single mother and only met my dad when I was at the ripe age of 30, all due to huge family feuds. During 1975, I lived in Perl Road in Korsten with my uncle and also grew up on a little farm in Lotus River in the Western Cape.
“I survived 15 years in the police service in the capacity of the first and youngest station commander of colour in the history of the Beaufort West Police Department in 1990.
“I underwent the worst forms of racism and discrimination simply because I had seen things from a different perspective than others.
“I had seen many things, also the way we are daily mistreating the people on the streets and that has been the greatest motivating factor for me: simply to tell everyone out there that we could be doing much better and treat people much better than that,” Antonio explained.
He added that he had faced many challenges as a young boy too, especially when he was 11 years old and the owner of the farm where he lived wanted to take him out of school at one stage to work on his farm.
Both he and his late grandfather objected to that and he was allowed to continue going to school, even though there were times when he couldn’t attend school for long periods of time.
“I used singing, bodybuilding and good friends as a vehicle on the long road to success. The late mister Adam Williams, our neighbour and youth leader at the time, played a pivotal role in keeping me and others in check.
“He motivated us back then to always strive to be the best that we could ever be and I took his encouragement very seriously,” he said.
“I finally started writing in February 2001 and finished in 2017 but kept it in my safe for years because I had so many things to consider before publishing, namely, my late parents, family and friends, until God convinced me last year to submit the raw manuscript for publication.
“I did it and the book was officially launched on April 23, 2022, in Gqeberha,” he said.
The book, titled, I Trusted the Process, is about a former street child who grew up without his biological parents and was raised by his grandparents who came from two different social and ethnic backgrounds, referring to his own grandparents.
The book is based on his own experiences of racism and discrimination, especially in the workplace and how he discovered his European, Khoi, Asian and Malay ancestral roots through DNA testing in America.
When asked what his life experiences have taught him, Antonio said that he has learned to not be judgmental of others but get to know them and their stories, have empathy and advise where necessary.
“I think that’s the way that God has moulded me for this divine journey ahead of me: to be humble and reach out even to the homeless and to show love and care to people being forgotten and overlooked by society.”
His advice to other aspiring authors is to hold on to what God said He will do for you.
“He is faithful and trustworthy. He did it for me and is thus able doing for you all. Keep on trusting his process.
I trusted the process is available on www.takealot.com.
