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32 | denis beckett<br />
a deliberate personal affront; he’d seen it as a normal subbing<br />
job and a light one at that. I was astonished to find that it was<br />
standard practice to chop the editor’s leaders around, and we<br />
established that I would fail to appreciate a repeat. Mike was<br />
happy except for one thing: “our people”. That was the way it<br />
had always been done. We were a black newspaper, after all.<br />
He was implacable. I was implacable. We’d still be fighting it<br />
out, but that he has long gone to New Zealand.<br />
at first, my objection was the deception of white people<br />
passing themselves off as black. Later it was a bigger problem,<br />
the problem of black people, too, claiming “our people”. Who<br />
was anyone to think he spoke for a race? are blacks automatons<br />
to be told what they think? Let alone the flawed philosophy,<br />
wasn’t that precisely why South africa was stuck in a lousy<br />
logjam no-one wanted, because everyone treated “the blacks”<br />
as this monstrous stolid thing with a uniform mind? No wonder<br />
“the whites” were scared stiff of this entity breaking free, and<br />
turning to dominate them.<br />
Never since has an “our people” been insinuated into<br />
anything I have written, but there was still a deception. When a<br />
leader appeared in World it was assumed to be a “black view”.<br />
One of the NGOs, I think the urban foundation, had a newsletter<br />
in which I frequently read with fascination a “black view”<br />
composed by the very same lilywhites as were now holding the<br />
newsletter. This was a con, and I was part of that con.<br />
When I instituted a leader page in Weekend World I wrote<br />
99% of the leaders. But Percy took 99% of the credit and also<br />
99% of the blame. Gael and I would go to lunch on a Sunday<br />
– lunch invites dropped like rain in World’s high-fashion 16<br />
months – and diplomats and professors would say, “Percy’s on<br />
the mark today, huh?” or “What on earth is Qoboza up to”. I’d<br />
nod sagely and mumble evasions. It wasn’t wholly comfortable<br />
for me and it could be very uncomfortable for Percy, though not<br />
enough to stimulate him to write leaders.<br />
I tried to don his shoes while I wrote mine. The balance got<br />
tricky. for instance, I wouldn’t abandon the point that white
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