RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

Radical Middle | 155
a plane was the attorney General, Klaus von Lieres und Wilkau
(he has four forenames, too). He outlined his scenario of what
might have happened were Winnie convicted of murder at that
powderkeg time – when, at that, the death sentence not only
existed but was in some circumstances mandatory. I dropped
any idea that Klaus ought to have proceeded by law alone. He
would have caused thousands of deaths. even on the lesser
charge, public reaction to Winnie’s trial tested the edges of
chaos.
The aNc was the government in waiting, all right, but it was
a funny kind of waiting, with the anti-apartheid supporters’ club
singing hallelujahs from the rooftops and mumbling omigods
when the microphones were off.
To the liberal world the aNc was trigger-happy – didn’t they
see that good decent parliamentary opposition was working
on the problem? In NomaV’s world it was overweening – yes
of course there had to be shooting and bombing of whites
and collaborators, but not of anyone else. To me it would be a
magnificently welcome Party, if it was a Party among Parties,
vying, contending, answering to little people. But we seemed
headed for a new version of what the Nats had been for their
first thirty years: the fount of holy authority in the sacred name
of The Majority.
Frontline saw a small harbinger in 1988. We received a 12-
edition, double-page, full-colour, advertisement booking, for
Shell. Was this perfect or was this perfect? It was perfect. except
that after one appearance the booking was cancelled. Damn,
had someone from the government got at them? No, a director
had remembered a Frontline article entitled “The all-Important
aNc and Other Myths”, and did not want the new government
coming round with a little black book.
His view was his own but it reflected what people expected.
While I merrily wrote of a democracy where people voted
group cohesion sometimes, drains sometimes, moral guidance
sometimes, etc, I was on an island. Most people saw voting
herds, expressing identity like a census, delivering a mega-aNc