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Radical Middle | 123<br />
Tambo, among others. I was now to say, “Oh please forgive,<br />
Noble Prince, my impertinence in publishing a wholly truthful<br />
item that mainly says you should be taken more seriously than<br />
you are”? No, thanks, and ditto to the “implications”, which in a<br />
lot of minds were tied to Buthelezi being White Man’s favourite<br />
Black and the alternative to the aNc taking our houses and<br />
eating our babies.<br />
Buthelezi took the stand for a day and a half. He talked about<br />
the size of his hat. The Sunday Tribune had run a lightweight item<br />
about a fellow who made politicians’ hats and had mentioned<br />
that Buthelezi’s hat was the biggest in the business. Buthelezi<br />
had replied with an indignant letter. Now he was suing me for<br />
being called pompous, so the letter became a factor and edwin<br />
mined it all the way. It was no fun watching Buthelezi wriggle. I<br />
ducked out and took a long walk down the Parade or esplanade<br />
or whatever funny word Durban calls the shore road at that<br />
point. There I saw a mudguard-crash. One minute, each driver<br />
was ready to kill the other. Next minute, passers-by and cyclists<br />
and rickshaw men and everyone was part of one of those peacemaking<br />
love-ins at which South africans beat the world, and I<br />
came back to court much restored in the real nation that lay<br />
beneath the posturing around the crust.<br />
In the end we didn’t call any of the put-the-knife-in witnesses<br />
we had researched. We didn’t call me, either, and how the hell<br />
I agreed to that I cannot imagine, I think I was sleep-walking.<br />
Buthelezi withdrew the “pompous” complaint and won on<br />
“thug”. r12,000 damages. I couldn’t believe it, especially since<br />
the judgment seemed to me to turn law upside down, saying<br />
that since Buthelezi hobnobbed with kings he had greater<br />
rights against defamation than the ordinary Joe in the street.<br />
for practical reasons I was sorely tempted to leave it at that<br />
but in principle I didn’t see how I could, so with reluctance I<br />
appealed and for another two years the thing hung over my head<br />
while we waited for the appellate Division in Bloemfontein.<br />
everything about this case was perverse. I was spending my<br />
days and nights trying to talk an unhearing white society into
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