Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
106 | denis beckett<br />
suppose Heunis would mark such efforts with a “cL” or some<br />
such as he dropped them in his out-tray, code to his secretary<br />
for “Standard letter to Proposers of crank constitutions”. I<br />
couldn’t blame him. crank constitutions were high fashion and<br />
I, too, was drowning in them as private patriots throughout the<br />
land sought an outlet for nutty ideas and Frontline acquired a<br />
reputation as being the place to float nutty ideas. after all, look<br />
at the nutty one it was already punting.<br />
There were a million variations on the qualified franchise<br />
theme. There was a massive glossy tome with a plan to give the<br />
blacks 40% of the power now and an additional 1% every ten<br />
years. There was a proposal to make Buthelezi joint President,<br />
which would mean that then the whites would have the Zulus<br />
on their side and between them they’d knock the stuffing out of<br />
the rest. There were several schemes to hold the outside world<br />
to ransom. One set out a price-list for reforms – for X billion<br />
rands abolish the Population registration act; for Y billion give<br />
the blacks a fourth chamber … There were religious schemes,<br />
anarchist schemes, despotic schemes, no end. There was one<br />
to start off by giving blacks 60 years old or over the vote and if<br />
they used it responsibly extend it steadily downward. The prizewinner<br />
was a guy who said the problem was black education.<br />
abolish black education entirely and then there’d be no blacks<br />
with aspirations to rule.<br />
In this context I couldn’t take it amiss that Heunis slapped<br />
his cL for crank Letter on my effort. at least he replied, which<br />
was more than most.<br />
Oliver Tambo, President of the aNc, also replied, in what<br />
was, touchingly, not a form letter. My case to him was that he<br />
was getting nowhere waiting for the government to hand over<br />
power to an aNc which could choose whether to exercise that<br />
power with restraint. He needed to construct a liberation so<br />
thorough that no-one would ever run away with power.<br />
I took it that the choice was between a democratic aNc<br />
government relatively soon and a Stalinist aNc some time<br />
later. I wanted Tambo to succeed in acquiring one common
Change language