From her early life in Clairwood, Durban, to landmark work at the Rwanda tribunal and the United Nations, Navi Pillay’s career has challenged apartheid, impunity and discrimination, writes Devi Rajab.
In terms of human capital, SA has an enviable abundance of wealth in the number of Nobel Peace Prize recipients that it has proudly produced.
As the granddaughter of indentured labourer Ramiah Moodley, ,Navi Pillay now joins the ranks of Albert Lutuli, Mandela, DeKlerk, Nadine Gordimer and Bishop Tutu.
Widely acknowledged as one of the world’s most powerful and effective champions of human rights, South African born Navi Pillay has been a force to reckon with. She has always asserted wisely that there can be no lasting peace unless there is the rule of law and justice. Her motto Speaking Truth to Power is a socially cohesive injunction which she proudly claims she imbibed in SA.
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize could not have been conferred on a worthier candidate than Judge Navi Pillay despite the irrational and appalling condemnation of it by Donald Trump and his moronic acolytes.
Yet despite the unhappiness of Netanyahu and Trump supporters, everyone is happy in SA for different reasons. The Indians are proud because she is one of their own kind, The Tamils are proud because of the linguistic connections, the Muslims are happy because of her stance on Gaza and the average SA is proud because she places their country on the map.
In this entire flurry of pride and persuasion, Navi Pillay remains politically neutral and committed only to the cause of justice.
As Africa’s First UN High Commissioner for Human Rights she made an indelible impact on the global scene in a destabilized world.
In all she has had to contend with gender and ethnic chauvinism, political superiority, racism and bigotry yet she managed to steer her way through keeping the pressure of accountability alive.
Judge Navaneetham Pillay, universally known as Navi, has the ability to dine with the Rothchilds, the Clintons and the Queen of England and yet enjoy the dhall rotis that I had brought for her on one of my several interviews with her over the years as columnist for the Mercury.
Perhaps this is her overriding strength. In her meteoric rise to fame, which resulted in her being responsible for shining a spotlight on human rights abuses globally she seems not to have forgotten her people or her roots.
She relates with ease, confidence and warmth and shares her accolades with her family and friends more out of a sense of wanting to share the joys of success than bragging about her accomplishments.
The noble prize that she will now bring back home will be recorded in the history books motivating young South Africans for years to come.
How did the debilitating apartheid system allow such talent to surface?
Navi Pillay believes in the motto that “it takes a village to raise a child”. In recalling her formative days at school, she says: “It was through the endeavours of my teachers, who kindled in me the appreciation of English literature and drama that I was able to overcome my impoverished background and aspire to greater levels.”
It was a community effort. “When I needed a bursary to study at university, the entire Clairwood community raised funds for a bursary for me.”
Her teachers recall finding this little gem of a girl who was outspoken and sharp: a rare water lily among a mixed group of children.
Navi was born in 1941 in a Tamil-speaking family of seven children in a poor neighbourhood reserved for Indians in Clairwood, Durban, where there were dusty unpaved roads and no sewage system. Although international press releases describe her as a daughter of a bus driver, her father my uncle was highly educated in Tamil literature.
Until the ripe old age of 100 he would quote from the Ramayana and the Thirukural, philosophical readings in the vernacular. Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers documents hidden characteristics that nurture high achievers allowing them like cream to rise to the top despite social and political adversities.
It’s about strong families with good sound values.
Growing up in the 1950s, Navi was always the proverbial tallest poppy in the field, defying any attempt to lop her down to size. As a young girl I watched her shine in the community and was often in awe of this rough diamond.
She excelled as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, a Clairwood School production and, although she describes this area as being a slum, it was never a slum insofar as the cultural richness of the people was concerned.
I remember sitting in the audience holding thumbs for my elder sister who was competing against her cousin in the Hofmeyr Speech Context. The impromptu speech was entitled, “Every dog has its day”, and the participants were given five minutes to prepare their speeches.
My sister lost to Navi, who breezed through her presentation and concluded by drawing the attention of the audience to a pitiful looking drape on a window high above the hall with the words, “and someday that curtain too will have its day!”
Supported by her local Indian community with donations, she graduated from the University of Natal with a BA in 1963 and an LLB in 1965.
In 1967, Navi became the first female to open her own law practice in Durban.
“I had no alternative as no law firm would employ me because they said they could not have white employees taking instructions from a non-white.”
Her life was characterised by a pattern of resistance to the proverbial glass ceiling imposed by the apartheid regime. In Durban she co-founded the Advice Desk for the Abused and ran a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
As a member of the Women’s National Coalition, she contributed to the inclusion in South Africa’s Constitution of an equality clause prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of race, religion and sexual orientation.
In 1985 when she was a student at Harvard she co-founded the international women’s rights group
Equality Now . It was this link which gave her a platform from which to launch her international profile later on.
For close on three decades, she found herself quietly toppling barriers and exceeding expectations as the first black attorney to fight for the rights of prisoners on Robben Island.
Her memories of the rough seas in small boats to the prison are still vivid. In her quest to defend anti-apartheid activists she exposed the use of torture and the poor conditions of political detainees.
Her resolve in doing so was deepened by the fact that amongst them was her husband, whom she protected by preventing the police from using unlawful methods of interrogation against him. In 1973, she won the right for political prisoners on the Island, including Mandela, to have access to lawyers.
But the karmic cycle never fails to emerge in its slow but sure delivery of restitution. After Mandela was elected president of South Africa in 1994, Pillay became the first black female justice to be appointed to the South African Supreme Court of Appeals. It is ironic that as a non-white lawyer under the apartheid regime, she was not allowed to enter a judge’s chambers.
Her tenure on the Court was short, however, as she was soon elected by the United Nations General Assembly to serve as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
The tribunal, based in Arusha, Tanzania, was a landmark experiment, almost half a century after the retributive justice of Nuremberg. It attempted to move beyond the harsh and ultimately limited measures of those post-World War II war crimes courts by realising, in Pillay’s words, that in post-conflict situations the restoration of normalcy requires comprehensive strategies, including options for transitional justice, as well as redress and remedy for the victims.
She served on the tribunal for eight years. Her tenure on the ICTR is perhaps best remembered for her role in the landmark trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu, which established that rape and sexual assault could constitute acts of genocide.
Pillay said in an interview, “From time immemorial,rape has been regarded as spoils of war. Now it will be considered a war crime. We want to send out a strong signal that rape is no longer a trophy of war.”
As one wades through the charmed life of this amazing woman one wonders what forces shape people and what circumstances lead to others. There is a thread that runs through her life: a rare combination of ambition, drive and innate intelligence mixed with a deep sense of cultural identity and a sound value system.
Such personalities are able to overcome poverty, through a hunger for education, overcome prejudices through an innate sense of their worth and reach great heights through sheer hard work and determination.
Her mottos are compelling: “You can have no lasting peace unless you have justice” and “victims should be allowed to speak loudly”.
This daughter of Africa is indeed worthy of emulation. Popularly described by her distractors as “As a world class trouble maker”, she restores peace which is the very essence of the Nobel Prize.
Dr Devi Rajab is a psychologist, award-winning columnist and author.