HE is known as one of the fathers of the anti-Apartheid movement and an architect of modern-day South Africa.
HE is known as one of the fathers of the anti-Apartheid movement and an architect of modern-day South Africa.
Now Albie Sachs, a former judge on the Constitutional Court of South Africa and friend of the late Nelson Mandela, will be sharing his expertise with students in Scotland after being appointed as a visiting professor at Strathclyde University's school of law.
The 79-year-old carried out a series of engagements in Glasgow in recent days, including an event at the city's Centre for Contemporary Arts where he was the keynote speaker after a film showing the art and architecture of the former prison-turned Constitutional Court.
Mr Sachs, whose activism led to him losing an arm and eye in an attack by agents of the Apartheid regime, also carried out his first lecture with a group of "awestruck" post-graduate students, which included a film on his life, Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa, as well as the annual Nelson Mandela/Oliver Tambo lecture.
It is a visit heavy in resonance for a man who has given his entire life to the fight for human rights, with Dr David Livingstone, the Red Clydesiders through to the 1980s campaign to rename a street in Glasgow housing the South African consulates office as Nelson Mandela Place all influencing him across eight decades.
He said: "My associations with Scotland started off as very imaginative, a combination of David Livingstone, one of the biggest troublemakers of his day in challenging the slavery, to Red Clydeside, which was important when we were in the youth movement. We liked rebels because we were living in such an unjust society.
"There was a vitality associated with Glasgow."
He said the naming of Nelson Mandela Place was "really felt by the freedom movement in South Africa, very much so".
"Our other Scottish connection was with David Steele, who was a very senior figure in the anti-Apartheid support," he said.
Notably though it was Edinburgh rather than Glasgow which Mr Sachs visited while in exile in the UK. The city was a crucial staging post for many pivotal figures in the South African freedom movement. Many black South Africans studied law or medicine in the city, sometimes marrying Scottish women.
But the links go further, with the Enlightenment an influence on the early anti-Apartheid movement.
He said: "It was a twin connection, very different in terms of my own emotional experience.
"When I was in exile I loved coming to Scotland. There is a passion here, a responsiveness and emotion you don't always get south of the border."
Mr Sachs's career in human rights started in the early 1950s when he was a 17-year-old law student, later severing a brief spell in jail, including being placed in solitary confinement for over five months, for his work in the freedom movement.
He went into exile, first to London and then Mozambique, where in 1988 he lost an arm and his sight in one eye when a bomb was placed in his car.
After recuperating in London, he returned to South Africa and played a key role in drafting its democratic constitution. Nelson Mandela made him a judge in the new constitutional court, where Mr Sachs made a number of landmark rulings, including recognising gay marriage.
Turning 80 next month, it remains unclear how often he will lecture but as he heads on to Cork after his Glasgow engagements it suggests he is not slowing down too much.
He said: "I'll be coming back and we're still discussing when that will be. I've been called a visiting professor and that pre-supposes that I'll be coming back at least one more time or maybe more than that.
"At first the students seem a bit awestruck but the minute the engagement got going that all disappeared and it was very interactive.
"I don't know if that's because this is Glasgow, because they were not all from Glasgow, but people here speak out."
With his own direct experience of both terrorism and conflict resolution, Mr Sachs has been a regular visitor to Northern Ireland where he has worked with former paramilitary prisoners.
"I couldn't tell the difference by looking at them. All very big guys", he said.
But it is the new wave of terrorism Mr Sachs believes poses the biggest threat to human rights within the UK.
He said: "So far the UK is holding firm in not allowing terrorists to dictate the terms and the culture of openness, fairness and respect for human dignity that has characterised the best of Scotland and the UK.
"But there's always a temptation strong counter-remedies are required. But it would be sad if these counter-remedies themselves function to undermine the basic positive qualities of UK society."
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