Durban - Deeply saddening and lamentable. This was how former Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs described the uproar in Parliament last week.
But, he said that as a former Constitutional Court judge he could not comment on the specifics of what happened in Parliament.
He was speaking at the screening of Soft Vengeance, a film based on his life, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Howard College campus on Tuesday.
It is being shown at various tertiary institutions across the country.
There is also a 60-minute version that will be shown at high schools.
Sachs also slammed xenophobic attacks in the country and said that the violence was totally unacceptable.
“Africa paid the heaviest price for our freedom,” Sachs said. He recounted how two Mozambicans died when he was being bombed, but that he did not know about it until a few months after the event.
He also told how he was protected by Zambian soldiers from South African soldiers while in exile when they were drawing up the Bill of Rights with Kader Asmal and others. He said: “xenophobia is a form of self-mutilation.”
For Sachs, helping to make the documentary has been a personal voyage; he has had to relive some memories of his isolation in prison without trial for 168 days, his exile in England and the car bombing he survived in 1988 in Maputo, Mozambique.
The footage of the bombing, which shows Sachs writhing in pain on the ground, is shown in the movie, and an emotional Sachs covered his face when it was being shown. Later, he said seeing the footage of being injured still shocked him.
About the movie, he said: “The story that is told in the film is one among many. It captures the quality of the struggle in South Africa.”
Sachs said when movie director, Abby Ginzberg, approached him about making the movie, he needed to be convinced.
“I asked her to show me other films she had made and I liked them and then told her let’s give it a go… We argued from beginning to end but it was very productive,” Sachs said.
Ginzberg said it took five years to make the film and cost about R6.4 million.
Ginzberg encountered Sachs in the mid-1970s when he was campaigning for the anti-apartheid movement.
A qualified lawyer, she said she made the movie because Sachs was a “triple whammy” - he experienced solitary confinement, exile and a car bombing but still believed in peace and democracy in South Africa.
“My heart and mind opened up in a different way,” she said.
Making the film had taught her a lot about South Africa and she felt privileged to have been able to tell the story of Albie Sachs.
Ginzberg, who has been making movies for the past 30 years, said this was the best she had made.
For more information about the film visit www.softvengeancefilm.com
Daily News