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Interviewing Ahmed Kathrada: Inspirational! November 8, 2016 | Roni Mikel Arieli Moses Tladi: Painting

Homesickness In the opening paragraph of Shirli Gilbert's (2012) article about August 31, 2018 representations of Anne Frank in , she describes how 'Shir Ahmed Kathrada—an anti- activist imprisoned for Cushi”: African- American eighteen years on —secretly recorded inspiring Spirituals &quo... quotations from The Diary of Anne Frank in his prison notebooks, August 14, 2018 among other quotations from books and newspapers smuggled How Resistance into prison. In November 2014, I visited the Robben Island Led to London's Selous Street B... Archives and located the handwritten words that Kathrada August 3, 2018 recorded from The Diary, passages that were very much oriented Centenary of to Anne Frank's longing for freedom and optimistic hope, on the Nelson Rolihlahla one hand, and to Jewish suffering and the morbidities of the war, Mandela's birth... July 17, 2018 on the other. How Huddleston

and Powell Excited about this finding, I turned to Kathrada's Memoirs, a Squared Off volume that confirmed my gut feeling about possible imaginative About Racism... June 16, 2018 links drawn by him, between the Holocaust and his own situation Elizabeth —as an Indian South African, as a political activist, and as a Williams: "If you prisoner of the apartheid regime. Two months before my third do not write visit to South Africa, I ran into a Facebook post by the your... May 12, 2018 Holocaust and Genocide Centre, about an event Apartheid, Jewish they had organized marking “World Refugee Day.” They had Identity, and Early invited a special key guest: Ahmed Kathrada. Through the director Israeli Fore... March 12, 2018 of the Centre, Tali Nates, I established contact with with Kathrada, for a possible future interview. How Masekela’s journeys in exile shaped his On Friday morning, August 11, 2016, I was invited to meet Ahmed music... March 5, 2018 Kathrada in his apartment in Johannesburg, a meeting that will remain engraved in my heart forever. I met a kind, humorous and Letters of Stone: a podcast interview happy man. He received me with open arms and was very keen to with Steve R... share his fascinating and inspiring life story with me. Here and in November 12, 2017 subsequent posts, I would like to share with you some of the August 2018 (3) things he told me in those magical moments that we spent July 2018 (1) together. June 2018 (1) May 2018 (1) https://www.apartheidstops.com/single-post/2016/11/08/My-Inspiring-Interview-with-Ahmed-Kathrada-Part-1 1/3 1/27/2019 Interviewing Ahmed Kathrada: Inspirational! | Home | BUSINESS NAME

When we began talking, I told Kathrada about myself and NoMarvemberch 2018 2017 (2) (1) mentioned that I was travelling in South Africa with my baby boy, October 2017 (1) Ori, a sweet one-year-old child. His eyes lit up as I was talking July 2017 (1) about Ori, and he became emotional. Kathrada was a political June 2017 (1) prisoner, imprisoned for 18 years on Robben Island, and then for May 2017 (2) another 7 years in Pollsmoor Maximum Prison near . January 2017 (1) December 2016 (1) He told me November 2016 (2)

You know, what we missed mostly in jail was children. You know how long I waited to see a child? Just to see a child, 20 years, didn't see a child in jail. And saw this child in jail when after 20 years we were transferred to another prison in Cape Town, where we were only five prisoners so it was very relaxed and my lawyer came to see me with his little girl, his daughter, and she wouldn't leave the car so…

Kathrada immediately asked to meet Ori. Two days after the interview, Kathrada called to invite Ori and me for a coffee at his apartment. Kathrada's happiness when he saw Ori is evident in the picture I have posted here: "You made my day!" he announced with a big smile on his face.

In that moment, it became clear to me that this 87 year-old man who was an activist from the age of 17, was sent to prison when he was my age, at the age of 34. His 60th birthday was the last birthday he celebrated in prison. So he did not get to raise a family and to have children and grandchildren. Nevertheless, Ahmed Kathrada was not bitter, nor cynical. It is as if Anne Frank's optimistic spirit, to which he was so finely attuned during his imprisonment, had left its mark on him.

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