The making of a racist state Book

I was going to give this 5 stars and move on, but since there are no reviews here, I will arbitrarily tell my personal story about the wonderful Albie Sachs and his life-changing book.

So at first, Albie Sachs was just some guy whose jail diary I picked off my late grandfather's shelf in Italy because it was (1) in English and (2) about some guy in jail (which for some reason still hooks me).

Then, he became my friend. You know, the way that people (fictional or real) become your friend when you read their most intimate story on your grandfather's armchair while on vacation. This guy was exactly who I wanted to be--in terms of his character, because I had no idea that I wanted to be a lawyer or anything. As a white lawyer in South Africa, Sachs took a stand against apartheid and found himself imprisoned and in solitary confinement. Everything he does in this book is exactly what I would want to do if I were imprisoned for political reasons. Not in a self-righteous or pretentious way. Just as a good person.

I wrote my college essays about the jail diary and how it spoke to me. Not that it was recognizably life-changing, but I had to write about something, I guess. There was a personal angle, involving my grandfather who died before I was born and had spent 5 years in a prison camp himself. I wouldn't look back at those essays now if you held a gun to my head.

Then, I basically forgot about Albie Sachs.

Fast forward about 8 years, and for some unknown reason, I'm going to be a lawyer. And you know what happened to Albie Sachs? Well first of all, he went into exile from South Africa and lost his arm to a car bomb planted by agents of the South African government in Mozambique. Second, after generations of fighting for justice in his country, he helped to draft its first democratic constitution, and third, he became a justice on the Constitutional Court of South Africa! He happens to be the author of a moving opinion allowing same-sex marriage in South Africa, and also a bunch of other books that I now intend to read. Of course, it is entirely unforgivable that I didn't know any of this history at the time I was writing my lame college essays about him, but I'm going to blame the absence of wikipedia and leave it at that.

Justice Sachs gave a wonderful speech at my school and he showed a video he narrated about the meaningful art and architecture of his Court. I was ridiculously nervous, but with a little prompting I went and talked to him about the jail diary, about my awe for him, and a little bit about my grandfather. And you know what he did?? He put his one remaining arm on my shoulders and asked me for a hug!!! It was kind of the best moment ever.

Epilogue: That night, I went to a discussion about the different ways to be a public interest lawyer, where we were all super angsty about what perfect job would let us to make a difference without imposing our own agenda on the people or being a patch that covers up real problems, etc. etc. And well, I thought about Albie Sachs, who had inspired me as a teenager just by being a good and strong person in the face of injustice, and who now is--seriously!--a justice on the Constitutional Court. And I mean, you can hardly plan out a career track like that, right? You just kind of fight for what you believe in, when the fight is required of you, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

And sometimes you make a difference just by reaching out your one arm and hugging a poor angsty law student.