RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

96 | denis beckett
it was more upsetting to be congratulated for than attacked for).
PW Botha called a referendum, to ask enfranchised white
citizens of the republic if we supported a plan for government
to de-whiten itself in its inimitably race-bound fashion. We
were invited to give one of two answers. One answer was “Yes”.
The other answer was “No”. Those two sentences are not quite
as bland as they look…
“Yes” meant that Indians would be represented by Indians
in an Indian House, coloureds represented by coloureds in a
coloured house; africans as unrepresented as ever. It was
ludicrous, tragic. It would create civil wars among Indians and
coloureds. It would make the polls frightening and dangerous.
It would rub african faces in Outness. It would ruin or kill
participants. You couldn’t vote “Yes”.
But you couldn’t vote “No”, either.
There were two Noes. The conservative No said “no dilution
of white rule, or the end is the blacks taking over”. The Liberal
No was supposed to say, “Not enough, go back to the drawing
board and do better”.
The liberal establishment, headed by the Official Opposition,
the Progressive federal Party, was in sleep-walk. They thought
the “No” was their “No”. They were the Official opposition, they
insisted. It was them that the government was fighting off.
Well, this was wishful. The government barely noticed
its Official alternative, occupying a fifth of the House. It was
terrified of its own defectors, occupying cockpits, occupying
tanks, occupying half the minds of possibly a majority of
government supporters, and saying, “Our country is being
given to the blacks”.
To the person in the street, it was abundantly evident that
what mattered was the right. But the liberal leadership was in
a cocoon, insisting on their Officialness. (In the end, coarsely
summarised, english votes went “Yes” en masse, giving the
Verligte or enlightened half of afrikaners a landslide over the
Verkramptes or Benighted ones.)
These shortest of words, Yes and No, spawned a million