How does one forgive?” asked Albie Sachs, justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, during the opening of his standing-room-only lecture at Emory. A scholar, writer, lawyer, and anti-apartheid activist, Halle Distinguished Fellow Sachs spoke about forgiveness and reconciliation in a country emerging from decades of racial segregation, based in part on his own experiences during long years of exile in Maputo, Mozambique, before a car bomb nearly killed him in 1988.

His life since then and the intimate portrait of recovery painted in his book, The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter, was the focus of a roundtable discussion with scholars at the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry (CHI).

Sachs’ visit was part of the lecture series “Envisioning and Creating Just Societies: Perspectives from the Public Humanities” co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Public Scholarship (CSPS) and CHI.

Sachs first became involved in the African National Congress’ (ANC) efforts to fight apartheid while studying law at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. In 1955, Sachs attended the Congress of the People in Kliptown, South Africa, where he witnessed the adoption of the Freedom Charter. Over the next four decades, the Charter, which called for a racially democratic South Africa, served as the platform for ANC resistance to the policies of apartheid. After receiving his law degree, Sachs worked as a legal advocate for persons facing racially-motivated charges. But in 1966, his ties to the ANC forced him into exile in Mozambique. There, Sachs continued to work with the ANC and became the target of a car bomb planted by the South African police in 1988. Sachs narrowly survived the explosion but lost his right arm and the sight in one eye.

Sachs began his lecture by recalling the day he met Henry, the South African policeman who planted the car bomb that nearly killed him. Henry was applying for amnesty under South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and wanted to meet with Sachs before testifying. Sachs admitted he was reluctant to forgive a person who had caused so much suffering:

“I remember opening the door – looking at him, watching him look at me. I thought, so this is the man who tried to kill me … he’s shorter than I am, he’s thin and a bit younger. As we walked down the corridor, his stride was stiff like a soldier’s gait. …We sat down and we talked and talked and talked. Eventually, I got up and said ‘Henry, I have to get
back to work. Normally when I say goodbye to someone, I shake their hand, but I can’t shake your hand. Go to the TRC, tell them what you know and do something for South Africa. Who knows, maybe we will again meet one day.’ I recalled as we walked back down the corridor, that Henry was shuffling along like a defeated soldier.”

For the remainder of the lecture, Sachs discussed the motivations behind the formation of the TRC. Emerging from the
1994 elections as the ruling party, the ANC established the TRC to investigate acts of violence committed by apartheid’s foes and supporters alike. Over time, the TRC emerged as a forum for the victims of violence and repression to speak openly about their experiences. The TRC also allowed the perpetrators of human rights abuses to acknowledge their crimes publicly. If the TRC accepted these confessions, people like Henry would receive amnesty from further prosecution.

As Sachs explained the purpose of the TRC, a central concept emerged: ubuntu. This term, a shortened version of a saying from South Africa’s Bantu-speaking Xhosa culture, expresses the need to recognize the humanity of all persons, regardless of their previous actions. Sachs explained that the act of publicly confessing one’s crimes, or speaking about the suffering that resulted from these crimes, is an act of ubuntu. The process of reconciliation in South Africa demanded that everyone – both the victims and the beneficiaries of apartheid – recognize the essential humanity in one another. Sachs also mentioned the dilemmas of the TRC – particularly the problem of uncovering the “truth.” Sachs said “truth is complicated and elusive,” and that instead of trying to pin down the exact details of each case, the TRC needed to convert knowledge into acknowledgement. Only then, said Sachs, was any form of forgiveness or reconciliation possible.