University honours late chief justice
DOCTORATE FOR LANGA
FORMER chief justice Pius Langa was honoured by the University of the Witwatersrand yesterday.
A posthumous honorary doctorate of law was conferred on Langa, who died on July 24. His brother Mandla accepted the doctorate on his behalf.
“When I say ‘ my brother’, claiming the man who was this country’s second chief justice and the first black person to ascend to that position, I feel somewhat self-conscious.
“The possessive pronoun sits heavily on my tongue, because even though we were connected by blood, Pius belonged to a very wide constituency, ” he said.
Mandla described how, at Pius’s funeral, he realised that the man he had known for many decades was a mystery to him.
He said that as a family, they thought they had suffered a loss, but when they saw the outpouring of grief, they realised they had no idea of the actual size of the loss.
“Because we had no instrument with which to get a measure of things, we looked into the eyes of others to act as a rough guide to the extent of our bereavement,” he said.
As an author of fiction, Mandla took the liberty of imagining what his brother might have said to the grad- uates on the occasion of their celebration.
“One of the most important observations which he would have made is that we are living in a very complex time.
“He would have enjoined young people to read the tea leaves – to read the news and interpret the news for themselves, especially with some of the developments that have taken place (recently in the country),” Mandla said.
He said his brother would also have spoken about the importance of education and the scourge of HIV-Aids in Africa, which he said Pius felt needed all the resources that the continent could muster.
“He would have spoken about the inequalities in this country, and the fact that we are still the most unequal society. He was especially conscious of the issue of gender, and I’m sure he would have been appalled by some of the recent acts of violence against women and children.”
Mandla encouraged the graduates to continue with a sense of mission and find their own individual ways of meeting the challenges which beset society. “Do not be intimidated by the challenge or daunted by the magnitude of what needs to be done. You are the hope of Africa, and you will not fail.” –