RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

Radical Middle | 75
I would step into the role of the baronet concerned, calmly
directing an efficient operation from a quietly opulent office
and raising the quality of the nation’s information.
On September 3, 1979, Gael and I and our neighbours Harry
and Denny Watson-Smith, now in australia, packed a table and
two chairs into the Watson-Smith’s combi and carted them to
Dunwell building in Jorissen Street, Braamfontein.
Braamfontein in 1979 was the capital of dissidence and
Jorissen street was the holy of holies. at the west end was
Tramway House, home of half a dozen left-wing outfits and the
reddest above-ground building in the country. at the east end
was the Johannesburg city council, about as red as Margaret
Thatcher but the most powerful non-Nationalist public entity
in Sa. Between was a long frontage of Wits, the university of
the Witwatersrand, which was in permanent contest with the
university of cape Town to be more anti-apartheid than thou.
The main gate to the university – an underpass running
beneath the chemistry building – was the endpoint of campus
protest meetings.
Students would gather on the library lawn, deep inside
campus, and work up a heat. So far so good, safe and sound.
They’d start to march to town to make their case known. They
got as far as the Jorissen Street gate and there they’d find large
numbers of policemen standing around twirling sjamboks, and
a couple of dozen police vehicles, from brigadiers’ staff cars to
tank-like things suitable for invading Stalingrad. Something
in the air around the gate stimulated acute memory surges,
reminding students of outstanding assignments. But a few
hundred would remain, while leaders with megaphones
debated the pros and cons of further advance.
I was sometimes there in my journalist hat, but more
often I was there because I parked at the west end of Jorissen
Street, where there were no meters. I’d be on my way to my
car and I’d see a pending headbusting and I’d listen, and I’d
get encouraged, mostly. Whatever public catastrophes were
happening in education – the Lost Generation created constant