RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

6 | denis beckett
age. Were they now to go and blow people away, perhaps get
themselves blown away, in defence of white rule?
Short term, I could see the problem. Long term, no. We could
make a great society. We had good people. Decent upright Godfearing
afrikaners, just terrified of reverse oppression, that
was all. cheerful amiable honest blacks, patient and courteous
despite centuries of tough times. all we needed was a resolution
of the flaw at the core of the political equation. Some day –
soon, now – a key would be found, a way to free the whites of
the fears and the blacks of their impotence. That was all we
needed, a way to bypass the idea of a simplistic racial swap,
a mechanism to liberate the good in mankind and thump the
causes of ill. People with contributions had to stay. They had a
nation to make.
John wasn’t buying. He’d been through it over and again. We
parted sorrowfully. The spiky bits were well melted but I hadn’t
got round to enlightening John as to his credit or blame for the
direction my life had taken.
I never did. John was still new to Sydney when he had a
heart attack on a hockey field one Sunday. When I cried on the
Monday it was not least for the unfinished business.