RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

Radical Middle | 199
Point four was how common it was for parties to lawsuits to
come to believe in – truly, deeply, be sure of – the rightness of
their cause, even people who would absolutely insist “not, me,
I’m objective, I look at all sides”.
The case of Beckett vs Buthelezi legally immaculately
creates an outrageous truth: that to say “thuggish” of Inkatha’s
activities in the 1980s was impermissible. I’m not a guy who
is greatly hung up about “legacy”. all I really want is not to
embarrass my kids. It bugged me a little that I had sleepwalked.
it bugged me a lot that the most perfectly lasting thing I had
done – the Law reports are forever; the body of precedent –
was to cause a freak judgment. If there is a redeeming feature, it
is that this case might one day contribute to an erasing of ways
by which right law can have a wrong effect.
Meantime, history was about to half-repeat itself. I was about
to again grace the Law reports, again in a case before the chief
Justice.
Johnny Johnson, editor of The Citizen wanted r50 000, for
Stephen robinson calling him “depraved”.
This gave Stephen an interesting full-house. I published two
robinson articles, I received two lawsuits. I hadn’t seen lawsuits
at frontline, otherwise. Banning orders, yes, three in total, but
nine years had brought forth a total of one written grievance.
That was from Willem Wepener, editor of Beeld, who didn’t
whisper a word of threat, he merely said he expected better. So
of course we corrected and apologised.
“Depraved” was never meant to imply that Johnson flashed
schoolgirls. That was self-evident. It was a crack at his weird
writing. I thought it was unduly thin-skinned to take offence,
but if he was offended I was willing to apologise. I wrote to him,
offering to come and discuss it.
By July 4, 1988, when I wrote that letter, I’d graduated to a
word processor for real writing, but one-paragraph stuff was
easier to bang out on my trusty World War Two black upright
underwood. a sheet into the roller, a couple of clang-clangs of
the carriage return, clackety-clack on those long-drop keys with