LOOSE CANNON: Robert Kirby
BOTH of my liberal friends have again gone into moral shock. This recent disaffection is no result of conventional stimuli. It has a more specific aetiology than the vaguely defined silts of the apartheid system. These two people are disturbed for very compact reasons. They have been watching and listening to reports emanating from the twin amnesty hearings which took place in Cape Town last week. Those to do with the killing of American student Amy Biehl and the St James church massacre.
This whole amnesty deal is the end product of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process and is yet another example of how the prosecution of expedient political needs often may be relied on to contaminate the dignity of established legal procedures. Think of the popular Percy and Quartus show of the mid-1960’s Rivonia trial. The truth commission sprang from a noble-sounding but ultimately dubious notion: that the expiation of gross human trespass might be solicited by no more than its detailed revelation. I suppose there’s something to be said for such a simplistic approach. But only if all you want to do is wipe up the blood quickly.
The real trouble is that truth commission and amnesty hearings might, in the end, deny someone like Marius Schoon his right to claim civil damages from, if not the vehement punishment of, someone like Craig Williamson, merely because Williamson got up, looked sufficiently crestfallen and said he was sorry for his premeditated and cowardly killing of Schoon’s wife and child.
If it does, then there’s something intrinsically wrong. After all, when Schoon went to jail to serve — without a day’s remission — his term of 12 years, it was for a politically motivated crime in which the most stringent precautions were taken to avoid human casualty. What makes Williamson so special?
In the light of this and other examples, the whole amnesty business looks more and more like the last resort of political and legal systems which are too lazy to do their job properly. I am of that school which believes we should have had our own Nuremberg trials. I would even recommend that, following the example, we should have also had an Albert Pierrepoint as a team leader in the punishment department.
Anything else is half-baked. Either we do the retribution job properly or we close the door and write it all off. As Aldous Huxley said, chronic remorse is a most undesirable sentiment. Make what amends you can for past bad behaviour. On no account reflect on your wrongdoings. Rolling in the mud is not the best way of getting clean.
But roll in the mud is what they have decided we are all going to do. And my liberal friends are especially upset about the fact that Anant Singh has arrived on the scene waving a Hollywood contract signed by Amy Biehl’s parents.
I fail to understand why my friends are so appalled. Like their fellow liberals they didn’t raise too much protest when more traditional South African iniquities were modified into showbiz terms by those patient dramatic sucklings of the South African tragedy, the ones who used to make going to the Market Theatre such a rewarding experience. And not only rewarding for the Market Theatre. For what’s wrong with being financially prudent about witnessed adversity? While the sun shines and all that. They knew there wouldn’t always be an apartheid tree dropping gloomy dramatic apples on our leading playwright’s head.
So why is everyone suddenly going all coy about Singh snapping up the film rights for the Biehl killing? Singh didn’t start dickering until Biehl’s blood was dry. He waited for the court case to finish. He waited for Peter and Linda Biehl to receive the counselling and advice of their fellow Californian Christians and for the moment when they felt it could be scripturally appropriate to start taking profits.
No blame may rightfully be apportioned to the Biehl parents other than that they are accusing the wrong tragedy, in believing that the killers of their daughter wouldn’t have grown up into mindless political thugs but for the deprivations of apartheid. The actual truth is, Biehl didn’t get killed under the aegis or on behalf of the apartheid tragedy. It was the tragedy of transformation to blame. That is a wholly different thing.
But perhaps Biehl’s death wasn’t entirely in vain. What Singh has described as “some big Hollywood names” will want to take part in telling her story. What does surprise is that Singh seems to be limiting himself. Why stop with Biehl? Why doesn’t he go the whole road? Produce something like those Hitchcock horror specials. I’m sure he could negotiate some sort of fleet- owners discount on personal tragedies. I can just see it: The Anant Singh Fatal Attractions Hour. Episode 1: Eugene de Kock. Next week, Robert McBride then Dirk Coetzee. The list is endless.