Not On Authority

Here's an unwritten rule for negotiating South Africa: never, ever take anything on authority. An authoritative assurance alone should be reason to check it out independently. One of the very first false tactics that anyone uses here is: "Take it from me, on authority." The fact that this tactic is so often used would indicate that most people accept it -- including me. It is a national mindset, easily exploited -- and in the Church, too. OBSERVATION: Yesterday I discovered that some officials had handed me an unlawful document, stamped and signed and all, with the authority (they said) of a legal department behind it. Perhaps the most spectacular incident was where an official hollered at me in public and pointed to some print on the wall. I was in the wrong place to lodge a complaint, he said -- I should get out of there. When it finally occurred to me to read the print myself, it said the opposite.