David Beresford Another Country I have spent the past couple of weeks hesitating over what to do about Footnote 29. The footnote that has been causing this agony of indecision is contained in the report of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) on the media that, as everyone knows, found the industry to be a hotbed of white racists.
My agitation is that this footnote refers to me no less than twice by name, but I do not understand it. Never having appeared before the commission, never having submitted evidence and, so far as I am aware, never having been the subject of testimony before it, I cannot understand why I should merit its attention. To compound my bewilderment I cannot make head or tail of the footnote itself, which appears to me to be largely incoherent. At the same time it does seem to be critical of me, concluding some muttered references to the Helena Dolny scandal with the charge that I “failed” to answer unspecified questions published by someone in The Star, to whom and to which I was unaware that I owed any such duty. I might I suppose have taken comfort from the old rubric of the PR industry, which has it that “no publicity is bad publicity” and welcomed the footnote as the 15 minutes of fame for which, as loyal readers well know, I have long been preparing. But, I realised to my chagrin when I tried to read the report, only the hardiest of souls are likely to penetrate as far as Footnote 29. It would therefore earn me no fame among my contemporaries. But there it would stand, probably my only monument – preserved in all its glorious gibberish in the state papers. The most I could hope for is that, like Fermat’s last theorem, failures over centuries to solve the conundrums it poses will see it plucked from the obscurity of the dusty archives for the great theoretical minds of the future to struggle over – in search of the key that will unlock understanding of what will doubtless be celebrated among future generations as “Beresford’s 29th Footnote”. Yes, well … One hardy soul who did penetrate the HRC report at least as far as Footnote 29 was a lawyer, who can be excused because he is paid to wade through official papers of its kind. He accosted me at a social function with the advice that I should “take action” over the reference to me. But, I protested, how could I take personal offence at an incoherence, how could I be aggrieved by something I did not understand? We both mulled over the inescapable logic of this, munching thoughtfully on the snacks provided.
“Write to Barney Pityana and ask nhim to explain,” nnnthe lawyer nnnsuggested. Being a great nadmirer of this nparticular lawyer, I started to write to the commission’s chair, Barney Pityana, as soon as I got home, politely asking for an explanation. I quickly abandoned the approach, however. There is nothing quite so insulting as to ask a commission of inquiry – set up to explain things to a bewildered public – to please explain their explanation.
Footnotes, of course, have their parent text and, in an effort to understand the cryptic references to me in a wider context, I attempted to read the section to which it was appended, entitled “Social analysis of racial discrimination and racism”.
I must say I got only as far as the first two sentences, which read as follows: “An investigation into racism in the media is pre-eminently a social and analytical inquiry. It advances by social analysis rather than by mere legal certainties.” So far as I am aware the only “certainties” with which the law concerns itself is that elusive thing known as “the truth”. It seems strange that a commission set up by the Constitution – the supreme law in the land – should discount the value of the truth. After all, witnesses taking part in the hearings before the HRC were required to swear an oath, or at least solemnly affirm that the evidence they were about to give was “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. In the circumstances it is difficult to understand how that truth could be subordinated to “social analysis”. The HRC’s ambivalence about the truth has an echo in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC asserted, in the introduction to its final report, that there were four kinds of “truth”: factual, or forensic truth; a narrative, or “story- telling” truth; a “social”, or “dialogue” truth “established through interaction, discussion and debate” and “healing”, or “restorative” truth, which contains the important ingredient of “acknowledgement”. The “mere legal certainties” scornfully referred to by the HRC no doubt belong in the first category, while “social analysis” doubtless sprawls across the rest. Happily, little publicity has been given to the TRC’s deconstruction and expansion of the “truth” as it clearly threatens to undermine the workings of the courts, offering obvious attractions to those who, through lack of learning, nurse more simplistic notions of “the truth” and might otherwise be inclined to plead “guilty, as charged”.
In addition to their idiosyncratic approach to the truth there is another striking parallel between the TRC and the HRC, in that both are run by clerics. The TRC had churchmen as both chair and deputy chair. At the HRC Pityana is an ordained Anglican priest and the panellist who seemingly contributed much to the HRC’s report, Margaret Legum, is also a person of strong religious persuasion. Legum is an intriguing figure. A South African heiress she has worked as a “race sensitivity trainer” for major corporations here and in the United Kingdom and has even advised the British police on the subject. She is also a member of the Iona Community, an ecumenical group based in a rehabilitated monastery on the island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland. Clambering onto my cyber-board and surfing to their Net site I am informed that members of the community are committed to “a Rule involving a daily devotional discipline, sharing and accounting for their use of time and money, regular meeting and action for justice and peace”. There is even what appears to be a poem, homily, psalm or possibly a hymn prominent on their site written by Legum that concludes: “Oh open out my ribcage/ Vibrate my sappy core/ Let bells deflect my hoary breath/ Hurl high inspirit spires/ Let me surrender life and death.”
Reflecting on the religious passion that self-evidently lies behind these words it struck me that it offered an explanation for the curious report produced by the HRC on racism in the media and the confusion it promotes.
In gibberish offered up as “social analysis” is to be heard the babel of worshippers “speaking in tongues”. In its carelessness of investigation lies the promotion of the mystic. In its lack of interest in “mere” legal certainties lies the gnostic authority of the high priests. In the sweeping nature of its findings lies impatience with secular concepts of justice measured against that of original sin for which mankind needs be brought to confession.
If one is to discover the marvellous mysteries such as those contained in Footnote 29 one self-evidently requires faith.