RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

168 | denis beckett
forward. I tried to rationalise it; tsk, poor Zambia, in the birthpangs
of independence the characteristics of confidence could
not yet be expected. Thus became I an accomplice in Zambia’s
slide. When you start making excuses, where do you stop?
I stayed for a time on Independence avenue, between State
House and the Secretariat. Morning, evening, and twice at
lunch, His excellency, The President, occupied the road, and
there were police and sirens and motorbikes and immobile
civilians ten minutes before and five aft.
It was exciting, the first time. Wow! The Prez! With flags and
pomp and power! By the third time the motorcade chowing the
middle of the road loses its thrill. The blaze of glory curdles to
vainglory. I’d look at lorry-drivers and deliverymen around me,
engines switched off, catching a snooze. It was hard to rise to
Kaunda’s frequent exhortations to greater productivity.
I thought the pomp and the bullying may be “african
character”. Later I revised that. These things are effects of a bad
political base. Whatever “african character” there may or may
not be, if big-shots answer fully enough to little people they
don’t think of telling employers who to sack
after Zambia, I took a stint as a barman in Devon, england.
I had an aged truck that supplemented my income by lugging
cargoes to London from time to time. On one trip, fuming in a
London traffic jam, I looked at the car next to me, a quiet green
rover. The Prime Minister, edward Heath, was in the back seat,
reading documents and glancing at his watch, as irritated as I
was. I decided then and there that I preferred a society where
the head of government gets stuck in traffic jams to a society
where he causes them. Not least, a Prime Minister who gets
stuck in traffic jams is not likely to be a Prime Minister who
locks up the opposition.
But I belonged in Johannesburg. Who was I to want anything?
I was only white. What did my view matter, in africa? The
european way might be fine for europe but if africa’s way was
vainglory and the Governor’s blacklist, mustn’t I bow to that?
The word “liberal” was big and clear in those days. a liberal,