Photo by Jane Scherr |
Albie Sachs Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 8 of 8
How do these extraordinary experiences, a judge who's been detained, who's been in solitary confinement, a judge who has been a victim of a bomb attack in which he almost loses his life and has to heal himself, how do these experiences influence your work today in the South Africa which has finally rid itself of Apartheid?
I think I feel that I'm just one of thousands and thousands and thousands of our generation who are trying to build into the new institutions of South Africa, and what the new government is doing, the positive lessons we learned in that past as a matter of daily routine and daily activity. Certainly I hoped, with the drafting of the constitution, a lot of its language, its feel, I was party to that. So I'm simply carrying on; in that sense, there's a direct continuity. I'm not unique. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was deeply affected by the American Civil War. He wrote about it. It stayed with him right through his life, through his thinking, and it appeared in his judgments. So maybe the particular combination that I had is unique in South Africa, but the experience of somebody who's had very intense episodes in life sitting on the bench afterwards, that's not unique to myself. The only discipline comes in, you're working within a framework of constitutional principles, it's a worldwide community of judges and lawyers thinking about human rights, how government should function. You draw on that, you contribute to that. Maybe my writing is a little different from that of my colleagues. I mean I started off a judgment recently, "Much of South Africa is tinder dry," and my colleagues would start off, "The appellant in the case is So-and-so So-and-so, herein afterward referred to as the appellant." It's a different method of presenting the issue, but the basic arguments are not all that dissimilar.
What are your feelings about participating in this transformation of South Africa? Sure, you read fairy tales, you had hopes, and so on. But in this case, it's actually come into being.
Intense joy, pleasure, satisfaction. I almost said smugness. The smugness is only in relation to the people who thought we were mad, we were crazies, that it was ridiculous. "One person, one vote, you mean black and white people voting on a basis of equality in South Africa, living as equals? Impossible." "Albie, I admire your idealism and faith, and so on. You'll be the first one to suffer afterwards. They'll turn on you, they'll devour you, they'll gobble you up."
It's very satisfying to know, not so much to say I told you so, but to know that the things that you put yourself on the line for, the beliefs that you had, the marginalization that you were subjected to, that in fact that call was right. There's a vindication, a validation of your whole life and of the things that you suffered, and so on, the discomforts and the terror. Everything makes sense, it was justified. And that's very, very thrilling. And it's thrilling in a personal sense but it gives one courage about the world, that it is possible to have simple, naïve beliefs in human goodness and the capacity of people to change and to transform their lives, it's a living experience of it. And at the same time the skepticism. It wasn't as easy as we had thought, there were betrayals along the way. Everything is precarious, we don't quite know how it's all going to work out. It's not givens, it's not certain, the insecurities continue. That's also something that's very valuable along the way. But basically it's one of an intense optimism that results from all this.
Help me understand something. We spent a lot of time talking about your individual life story, but in many ways your story was mirrored in the lives of other people. I'm curious about this leap from the struggle of the individual to the struggle of the group, because the themes that we are discussing about your own life, suffering, confrontation, growth, healing, and so on, are really true of the South African people and also of the South African leaders. So in a way this is about an individual's struggle but it's also about a group's struggle. And throughout your story, communication between people, whether it's hearing the whistling of a fellow prisoner in the prison or the publication of political documents and group activities. Talk a little about that, this leap from the individual to the group in matters of reconciliation, healing, recovery, and transformation.
Particularly when we were tested, these experiences were intensely subjective. You were on your own, literally on your own when you're in solitary confinement. When you're blown up and almost dead, you're on your own. And in the second case there was that whole team saving me, operating ...
The physicians, the nurses the social workers ...
Yes. But you still have those moments of unconsciousness fading in and out. Communicating with them, hearing a voice. Telling one's self a joke that, as it happened, revived me from fainting again. And that slow, long recovery that's very personal. But then also the knowledge that I'm part of a community, a group, that what got me there wasn't just a purely personal idiosyncratic thing. That I'm in history. There are thousands of others out there crying for me, laughing for me, cheering me on. I'm doing it for them. It's about something. It's about the world out there. It's not about becoming famous or becoming rich or being powerful or enjoying sex. It's about who you are in the world. And that was very, very sustaining.
In solitary confinement it was more difficult because you forget the world out there and you really are driven in unto yourself. And you don't quite know what it's all about or why. And what kept me going at certain moments had nothing to do with the struggle. These questions of ideology, of knowledge, became more and more remote and I relied more and more on a kind of concept of honor that was very intense -- I'm not going to let these so-and-sos tell me what to do. I don't know why I'm holding out, all I know is that I'm holding out. And I sometimes suspect boxers get like that. They don't know why they're carrying on, they're just going to carry on. There's something inside that keeps them going. It has a lot to do with training, I'm sure, and preparation.
But in the end, I became a member of this wonderful, huge, South African family that had all sorts of different appearances and backgrounds and spoke different languages. But because we had to overcome barriers to be associated with each other, we just shared so much it was very, very intense. I learned to sing through the ANC. I would be stiff and white and tight inside myself and think I had to go to singing lessons, and I'd be up on a platform and everybody's singing, or marching through the streets and everybody's singing, and I just learned to loosen up, to let go, to go with the flow. Often I wouldn't know the words but it didn't matter. I would sing with my body. I would sing with the fun and the musicality and join in. That was very, very sustaining as well for me.
It sounds like you're saying that you as a group were blessed by the fact that you weren't just working to take over a government as a loyal opposition, but you were actually, within your organization, creating a civil society and all that that means.
That was very strong, you know. We weren't interested in politics and office and power, becoming prime minister or president. We would have scorned that. The prospects we had were of jail and torture and exile and underground. The only thing we could see in front and the only liberation would be for humanity, for the world, for the people. And it was intensely life enhancing and giving to feel that you're part and parcel of that. Very, very vivid and real on a day-to-day basis. The kingdom of heaven is within you, you are part of the struggle. You are joining with others. You have these intense beliefs. And then you see people whom you believe in behaving abominably, and it's under a lot of pressure, and people crack up and people get old and people get up. All that happens, but there's that stream, that core, that's running on and on all the time. And often I would say to myself that the whole is bigger than the parts. Individuals can be very fragile and very awful, but somehow interacting with each other there was something decent that was maintained all the way through.
You write, "What a generation I belong to, but there was nothing miraculous about it. It didn't just come to pass, nor was it just one wonderful person coming onto the scene, outstanding that he is. We worked for it, we never gave up. We never let go of the basic ideas."
Never, never, never. That was our greatest virtue. Even in the most testing times, when disaster seemed to be everywhere, when people were scattered, when even our friends were saying, "Look, be reasonable, be practical. Just accept a little bit and build on that," and so on. We never let go of the basic ideals. And they were simple ideals. They weren't very, very complicated. Apartheid was awful. We could all live together as equals in this country. We could work out solutions the minute we accepted that kind of shared patriotism or a shared citizenship. We never let go of that. And what gave us the courage and the strength was in our daily activities we achieved that. You called it a civil society within our own ranks. That sense of community, the enjoyment, the fun of doing things together. That was something that was very sustaining and interesting all along the way.
If students were to look at your story, look at your books, and look at this interview, what would be a succinct message for them about the life, the struggle, the triumph of Albie Sachs and of the South African people? What is the lesson there for them?
Don't be afraid of simple, good ideas. Don't try and be smart about the important things in life. Trust yourself and trust these basic things. The rest grows around that. You might or might not get success or fame or money or conquests, whatever. That might or might not happen. These things are very rewarding and sustaining. How they express themselves depends on the world you grow up in and the choices you have to make. I wouldn't wish my choices on anybody else. We've worked so hard so that people wouldn't have these choices anymore. That's one of our paradoxes. We fought with intense passion, almost delirium, so that people could live in a more boring society. But that's how it all turned out.
And then, maybe I would say that looking back, we were a little bit arrogant and harsh. And we felt that we had the truth. And in a way we did, it sustained us. But just, I would say, just be a little bit accepting of others and try and find the good in others, try and listen to others and understand their positions without capitulating to them. You don't have to come out slugging all the time. There's a lot of power in forgiveness, in reconciliation, in listening, in putting yourself in the shoes of the other person. This isn't weakness, it isn't diminishing it, it can actually be very, very enhancing.
Justice Sachs, thank you very much for taking this time to share with us your life experiences and talk about how those experiences are shaping your work today. Thank you very much for joining us and thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation with History.
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