The ANC politician who spent 22 years in a cell after being jailed with Nelson Mandela is now 84Denis Goldberg has faced down death before. Half a century ago he sat in the dock with Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia trial,the court case that shaped contemporary South Africa. Both were expecting to be executed for their fight against apartheid. When the judge handed down a sentence of life imprisonment instead, he called out in delight to his anxious mother: “It’s life, or life is wonderful.” He confesses to being a born optimist.
Now 84,and facing in lung cancer an enemy even more implacable ((adj.) incapable of being appeased or mitigated) than the apartheid state, he is hoping to defy death for another short spell while he throws himself into one last campaign, and to build a centre for the arts – to be called House of Hope – in his home town of Hout Bay.
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Source: guardian.co.uk