But when apartheid came in 1948 South Africa would change dramatically. DF Malan and his numerous successors –, HF Verwoerd, JB Vorster – all believed not only in white supremacy, but in black subjugation. And they went about its enforcement, ruthlessly. The 1950s were the days of the Group Areas Act, the Population Registration Act, the Separate Amenities Act – statutes that framed grand apartheid. Cities had to be cleansed of the “black menace”.
They soon met again, one as attorney and the other as counsel in the trenches of the anti-apartheid struggle. George would develop – in his own words – a 65-year friendship with Mandela, with the latter becoming prisoner, president and statesman, while George remained trusted counsel to Mandela, on the political and personal fronts.
George stood against injustice and oppression despite the personal and professional consequences for him. For years during apartheid, he was unable to return to Greece to visit his mother and family because he knew the government would not allow him to return. He took silk late in his career because of the political work that he did. At the Bar, he was a strong ally in the struggle for the admission of black advocates, beginning with Duma Nokwe, with whom George shared chambers.
In his role at the LRC, George was a colleague and friend, mentor and teacher. Mainly through his wisdom, coming from years of trial and error. Sometimes by instinct. Although we both occupied leadership roles at the Constitutional Litigation Unit of the LRC , it was to George that we turned for advice. He was, of course, ungovernable in all the best ways, but was the heart and wisdom that bound the LRC together.
Even after more than half a century of struggle through law, much of the work that George and others had done remains unfinished. George was still anxious in his final years to see justice for the victims of Marikana, accountability for unpunished apartheid murders of people like Ahmed Timol and so many more, and above all to see much greater progress in realising the constitutional vision of a more equal society, for which he had fought. These tasks now fall on all of us left behind.
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