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From Radio 4.
All the time there's this knowledge, the enemy, they're out to get you, when they eventually the state came to get me and blew me up there was a sense of such a triumph that I got through it. Because every day every night I would go to sleep, wake up, this was for decades will I survive? if they come for me will I be brave? Courage meant so much, it meant even more than wisdom, the strength to stick to your beliefs and not to betray other people, it was the most profound virtue that's why I felt so elated when I did survive the bomb.
[In 1964, spent 168 days in solitary confinement] The despair was there almost from the first hour. Isolation produces despair. Human beings really we have a deep inbuilt need to communicate with others, even to be angry with others but to connect with others. to be in a cell, to stare at the walls, your toes, there's nothing happening, it's a totally incongruous and inhuman situation to be in. And it gets worse, you don't accustom yourself to it.
Oh shit. Everything has abruptly gone dark. I'm feeling strange and cannot see anything. The beach, I'm going to the beach, I've packed a frosty beer for after my run. SOmething is wrong. Oh shit. I must have banged my head.
It will go away, I must just be calm and just wait. Oh shit, how could I have been so careless. The darkness is not clearing. This is something serious, a terrible thing is happening to me, I am swirling, I cannot steady myself as I wait for consciousness and light to return. I feel a shuddering punch against the back of neck. The sense of threat gets stronger and stronger I am being dominated, overwhelmed. I have to fight, I have to resist. I can feel arms coming from behind me, pulling at me under my shoulders. I am being kidnapped. They have come from Pretoria to interrogate and lock me up. THis is the moment we have all been waiting for, with dread and yet with a weird kind of eagerness. (the soft vengeance of a freedom fighter - lost his arm and one eye).
In total darkness a voice says, "this is XXX, the surgeon. You are in Maputo hospital, your arm is in lamentable condition, you have to face the future with courage." "What happened?" "It was a car bomb". I fainted but into euphoria - I knew I was safe.
Reception says, A man called Henry wants to see you. I was very eager to meet him because he had telephoned me to say he had organized the placing of the bomb. I opened the door, I see a tall person, not quite as tall as me, younger than me. he's staring at me as if to say, this is the man I tried to kill. I'm looking at him, this is the man who tried to kill me. We hadn't hated each other, we hadn't fought each other over money, or love, or power or anything. We didn't even know each other. We talked and talked and talked. After about an hour, I said "Henry, I have to get on with my work." He stood up. I said "Normally I shake the hands of someone I say goodbye to. I cannot shake your hand. But do something for the truth commission, do something for South Africa." 9 months later at a party, suddenly a I hear a voice "Albie!" He's calling me by my first name. "What happened?" "I told them everything."
"I only have your face to tell me what you're saying is the truth." And I shook his hand. He went away absolutely elated. I heard afterwards he went home and cried for 2 weeks. That affected me quite a lot.
It is far more important that we humanize our society, that we start acknowledging each other as human beings, than that some rascal goes to jail for a particular period of time.