Beautiful things You know, when you saw the picture of the car that had exploded, you say, how could anyone emerge from that wreckage alive? And when you look and you see suggestion of movement, it’s one of those moments when you… yes, good is actually stronger than evil. And to have someone who had that experience and, of course, carries a visible emblem of having gone through that hell, with a shirt sleeve that dangles, and you say, yes, there is evidence that goodness is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hate. And, you know, to have him, not as a once off thing, but that consistently, everywhere, as a judge, as an advocate in other parts of the world, he just has this consistency in his message, you say, ‘God, you are smart. You create some beautiful things. And thank you for Albie. Thank you, thank you, God. Thank you that he can speak with a credibility that nothing else is able to grant a person.’ And we know he speaks what he lives and has been through the grinder. And if anyone had the right to say, ‘Clobber them!’ Albie would be. He is his own vindication, his own signature of authenticity. I mean, you can’t doubt him. In a way you almost tremble being with someone like that and say what an incredible privilege we have in our country that we can have people of this caliber.

On hope We thought that we were special, and we were special, certainly in the struggle, and we have very many special people. I pray that our land will become the country for which people such as Albie gave so much, that we will be a country – maybe not the richest country in the world, but a country where we are compassionate, a country where everyone counts, and they know they count, everyone, everyone is a somebody, you know, and that ought to be how we want to thank people like Albie, that the sacrifice you made was not in vain.

When I learned about Albie Sachs the first time, he was outside of the country, he was still in exile, and we were inside of the country and working almost underground in the democratic movement and in the human rights movement, in the anti-apartheid movement, but when liberation organisations were unbanned and everybody came back into the country, that's when I met Albie for the first time.

Albie is what is possible You know, when I met Albie for the first time, I said, I like that he's a white person, I like that he's a white man, I like that he is like this and he's a white man. It gives us so much faith. Albie gives you faith in being human, in being South African, a white South African man. You look at Albie and think, Albie is what is possible. He has such true consideration for people, and he is so open with everybody. He will tell you if you're not doing it right. Albie will show you how to be courageous. When you hesitate, he’ll bump off your ideas. Albie will tell you, he will show you how you need to bite the bullet, like do it. Albie can do that. A number of times I would say, ‘Gosh, I don't like to do this. I don't have to say it like this,’ and Albie will say, ‘There's no other way of saying it. You have to say it like this. You have to say it like this, because if you don't say it the way it is, you might be missing the point, or you might leave out what will make the point.’

Putting his whole being on the table And his power of forgiveness has just been.... I guess he epitomizes that which we try as South Africans to bring across. Albie is one of those people who epitomises that. Sometimes not even a grain bitterness with Albie. He gets angry and will tell you that he is angry, he will tell you that he's disappointed, he will tell you that this is not right, I don't like this, you know, I don't like what somebody did, I don't think that was the way to do it. But he will always come and put everything on the table, put his whole being on the table, and no matter how much you can search, you won't find even a grain of bitterness. I admire that about him. I still want to see one day Albie talking bitterly about his experience. I'm waiting for that day, or waiting for that occasion, and I think it will probably never come. The way I know I've known Albie for the past fifteen years, I think that day will never come, for that day doesn't exist in his mind. And you see it in his writing, you see the way in his judgments, you see it. You know, when we write a judgment, we would have consensus and we would have a unanimous judgment, Albie will find an angle which needs to be emphasised and write a concurring judgment, and what comes out of that judgment will be, and I'll always say, yeah, this is Albie. He always finds an angle that, I think, is born out of his experience, and taking his experience and giving it to the general experience. And I think probably that has a lot to do with the angle that he recognises every time when there is a national issue to resolve.

And my daughter is a young lawyer, and she says, ‘Mummy, I love that man's judgments.’ Certainly, she is my daughter, I'm a judge, and she says, ‘I love Albie Sachs' judgments,’ and I say, ‘Yes, I love his judgments, too.’ And I think these ideas, this thinking is born out of not only the experience about the bomb and his arm, but maybe through also growing up in a family with an activist father, struggle father in the labour movement, and the values that have been instilled in him, and the values that has made him what he is. His experiences, his personal suffering, you know, physical suffering. I don't even know if he regards it in the way that I regard it, but his personal experiences are just added values to what he already had, to what actually drove him there.

I think Albie is an example. The way Albie manifests and shows how to forgive, or maybe even how to reconcile, or even how to turn around the suffering, how to shift, let's say, racism into anti-racism, how to shift bitterness to forgiveness. It's how he lives his life and how he perceives his life, and his current notions of South Africanism is, I think, a good example of what we can achieve as a nation in our quest to turn around South Africa and shift into a space away from the bitterness, the racism, the inequalities, the indignities of the past. I think Albie shows how it can be done.

I am here tonight to celebrate a remarkable individual for the values and ideas that he stands for. But also, the way that the force of his example continues to multiply day by day, year after year. That to me is leadership…. In 1952 when 17-year-old Albie was arrested at a protest against apartheid, he asked the question that's so often leads to true leadership. Why? Why were his peers of colour always harassed, terrorised and threatened. Why couldn't his fellow South Africans stand up for the rights and dignities of others without fearing for their safety? Why couldn't his country see the humanity of all people? Albie Sachs’ legacy is a testament to the tireless pursuit of those answers. For his efforts, he was followed, raided, threatened, jailed, deprived of sleep, nearly assassinated and exiled from his homeland for a quarter of a century. He had every opportunity to give up, to wring his hands. He could have said, ‘I'm not black, these aren't my problems.’ But Albie didn't, thankfully, because what he was fighting for was so much bigger than him. When his friend Nelson Mandela was freed, Albie returned to a country on the cusp of rebirth. He helped write a new constitution, served on its highest court, defended the vulnerable, combated discrimination, helped bring South Africa closer to the place he always knew it could be. You see, Albie always believed that his country could be better, more fair, more just, for everyone. Because he knew that even if the day he was waiting for wouldn't come fast, it would still come. Isn't that what we're here celebrating tonight? The perseverance and bravery that change demands. Because you don't have to write a country's constitution to help change its laws. You don't have to cheat death to make a difference. All you have to do is ask that same question. That same question that made Albie a revolutionary, Why? Why don't our values line up with our reality? Why are lies and conspiracy allowed to breathe the same air as God's honest truth? Why does it feel like our rights are being stripped away? Our right to vote? Our right to make decisions about our bodies? Why do so many kids around our country go to neglected schools? Why do so many girls around the world struggle to get any schooling at all? Why can't we honour the light inside of all of us, no matter who we are or what we look like, or where we come from? Why? Albie taught us the power, and in his own words, the soft vengeance of those three little letters. He used them to help transform his own country. And now he's doing so… in doing that he challenged us to use them to transform our own. That's what we honour tonight. Not just a single man's legacy of progress, but the possibility of progress that's yet to be written. Possibility that lies inside all of us.