Thembile Ndabeni
Cape Town - Media reporting under the apartheid system had gaps because of bias.
Same applies to the recording and teaching of history at that time. Unless an issue hit the headlines, it took the progressive newspapers like The World and the international community for society in general to know.
This is why the likes of Sydney Kentridge are not really known. He was one of the many white people who sacrificed their privileges of being white and risked their lives against the injustice prevailing in South Africa.
Whether South Africans, especially the former oppressed and freedom fighters, honoured him or not, the world would honour him in one way or another.
When he started to be involved in fighting for justice for people who were not given it, it was when it was not fashionable, but a sacrifice and a risk. Also, he was not known much at home at the time. He defended the likes of Chief Albert Luthuli, who was not given the respect he deserved as a chief.
His other client was Nelson Mandela.
He was also involved in other tough and prominent cases like the Treason Trial (1958-1961).
He was not alone but at times worked with the “big shots” who were made and shaped by the course, fighting for justice. These were the likes of Israel “Isie” Maisels, Bram Fischer, and George Bizos. They faced the likes of apartheid justices like Frans Lourens Rumpff, and Percy Yutar.
If it was not for him and his aforementioned colleagues, many leaders, especially those who continued with the Struggle until 1994, would have been crushed by the repressive apartheid regime.
Recording, teaching of history and the censorship of the media might have hampered knowledge and information about him. But his role in challenging the death of Steve Biko became the highlight of his career as a lawyer, and not just a lawyer but a white lawyer challenging the evil white minority apartheid regime.
He was at the centre of exposing how Biko died, as opposed to the lies told by the evil authorities led by James Kruger, the minister of justice in South Africa. In his book Black & Gold: Tycoons, Revolutionaries and Apartheid, Anthony Sampson (1987:111) made a presentation: in the inquest the police interrogators, cross-examined by the family’s lawyer Sydney Kentridge, described how Biko had been kept naked in his cell for two days, in handcuffs and leg-irons; and how when he collapsed he was driven 1200km, naked in the back of a Land Rover to Pretoria prison hospital, where he died.
From the legal angle, Kentridge’s contribution was also recognised.
The South African General Council of the Bar annually awards the Sydney and Felicia Kentridge Award for service to the law, not only in South Africa, but in the southern Africa region.
It holds water, because he once served as a judge of the Appeal Court in Botswana.
But he refused the offer of serving as justice under the apartheid system.
Felicia Kentridge was his wife, and she was also a lawyer.
Sir Sydney Kentridge received the Order of the Baobab in Gold in 2008.
We, the people of South Africa, must be grateful to God for the centenary He awarded him. The likes of the greatest like Mandela and others did not get it. This is not a blessing only to him, his family, and friends, but to all the people who love the country and the shape it is supposed to take –non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and unitary South Africa.
Marcus Aurelius (2014:136-137) is relevant here: He does not even give a thought to what others will say or suppose about him or do against him, but is content to meet these two conditions – his own integrity in each present action, and glad acceptance of his present lot.
He has abandoned all other preoccupations and ambitions, and his only desire is to walk the straight path according to law and, in so doing, to follow in the path of God.
November 5 marked Kentridge’s 100th birthday, therefore happy belated centenary birthday.
Ndabeni is a former history tutor at UWC and a former teacher at Bulumko Senior Secondary School in Khayelitsha.
Cape Times
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.