I often look at Paul Pretorius, head of the legal team at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, otherwise known as the Zondo Commission, and marvel at his mild deportment.
For someone with verifiable Struggle credentials, he is without airs and graces. His bio says he was admitted as an advocate in 1977 and took silk in 1994.
The seemingly affable Pretorius was hewn out of the old all-white National Union of South African Students (Nusas) that, though well-meaning, earned the ire of Steve Bantu Biko who lamented that, to paraphrase him, often a lot is said about us, for us, but without us.
Subsequently, in December 1968, a cohort of black students staged a walkout from a Nusas gathering to later form Saso, the South African Students Organisation,…