"Pas devant les noirs." My host smiled, a warning finger raised to his lips. We were sitting in the open, enjoying a lunchtime barbecue on a spacious farm in what was then Southern Rhodesia. That was more than 20 years ago, but the occasion is as clear in my memory as if it had happened last week.
For a start the setting was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. The long, low white house was furnished with an eclectic mix of exquisitely graceful African carvings, modern paintings bought in Paris and New York, and antique furniture brought out from "home" which was, of course, England.
The lawn was immaculately green against the burnt red earth; vivid blossoms hung voluptuously from the trees and the hills of Africa were hazy in the distance. It was easy to understand the white farmers' attachment to their land.
I was there as a reporter, in the last days of Ian Smith's regime. A journalistic contact of Irish parentage had brought me to this breathtaking place to hear the views of the farmers and their wives. African servants, dressed in uniform, glided across the lawn to bring us our food. The assorted guests discussed whether the appalling guerrilla campaign could be brought to a peaceful end. In particular, they wanted to talk about the loyalty, or otherwise, of their black workers.
It was agreed that some behaviour could not be condoned. Mr X, who farmed several thousand acres a few miles away, was heading for real trouble if he continued to make his black workers copulate in front of him. It was at this point, as a servant moved to refill our wine glasses, that our host warned his guests to be more discreet.
Later, my journalist friend spoke in more measured tones of the relationship between the white farmers and their black workers. It was accepted, for example, that many farmers, even those who considered themselves relatively liberal, beat their labourers. He was not hopeful about a happy future for his beautiful country, even if the British government got tough with Ian Smith. Most of the good land was held by white farmers and they would not easily part with it.
I've thought a lot about that lunch party in recent days, as our television screens have filled with pictures of black war veterans setting fire to white farms. None of the foregoing is intended to justify what is happening in Zimbabwe. The murders of two white farmers and the rapes of two white women are ghastly, as are the less reported deaths of black Zimbabweans, some because they are seen as opposing Robert Mugabe's regime.
It is clear that Mugabe's refusal to condemn the attacks is part of a desperate bid to save his political skin. Already weakened by the loss of a constitutional referendum which would have strengthened his presidential powers, he now faces elections in which he will be opposed by the increasingly powerful Movement for Democratic Change.
Many of his problems are of his own making. Yet, I keep thinking of that lunch and of the fact that 4,200 white farmers still own 70 per cent of the good land and 350,000 black farm labourers are paid the equivalent of 60p a day. Land is always an emotive issue as we, of all people, should understand. Other black African leaders, who share a history of colonialism, are reluctant to condemn Mugabe. The question that has to be addressed is why the land issue has been allowed to fester for 20 years and whether there is the will to institute real reform now.
There are lessons for us in all this. That lunch in the lovely African countryside is not the only time I have heard the phrase "pas devant" used in political discussion. In the early days of the Civil Rights Movement I met one of Derry's leading unionists. He had at first been wary of talking to me, for I was seen as having taken up too enthusiastically the grievances of the city's Catholic majority. At the same time, he wanted to discuss the political situation and the need for a strategy which, in his view, would offer enough in the way of concessions to "keep the lid on things". At one point a young maid, dressed in a black uniform with immaculately starched white apron and frilly cap, brought us tea. My host put a finger to his lips and murmured: "Pas devant les domestiques." I presumed the young maid was a Catholic from the nearby Bogside, probably grateful for the job . . .
This is the language of racial superiority and exclusion. It is a measure of how much things have changed in Northern Ireland that it is impossible to imagine such phrases being used today.
It is very easy to get depressed about the current lack of progress in the peace process. There is little sign of any formula for getting the power-sharing Executive back on track. But if the present tragedy unfolding in Zimbabwe shows us anything, it is that getting the political structures in place, however hopeful, is only the beginning.
There has to be an acceptance of the need for change and a political will to deal with the legacy of injustice.. Here, at least, the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland continue to give us hope for the future. Relations between the communities are quite different from the virtual apartheid that existed 20 years ago. Nobody wants to return to the tribalism and violence of the past.
It may take a little longer to get the politics right, but there is a deep yearning to secure the peace and to build a future which both communities can share together.