Interview Segment

Kader Asmal interviewed by Robert Vassen
Durban, South Africa.
"This towering man spoke for about three hours... It was the first time the Indians had heard an African... He was a natural leader." [2:30]

Kader Asmal speaks about the impact Albert Luthuli had on his life and about Luthuli's nonracialism, communicating to Indians that they were part of a larger South Africa.

Kader Asmal was born in 1934 in Natal. He became political active during the Defiance Campaign of the early 1950s, when he was a high school student. Asmal trained as a lawyer and left South Africa and lived in Dublin for 25 years, where he was active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. He returned to South Africa in 1990 and became Professor of Human Rights at University of the Western Cape. He became Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry in 1994 and then Minister of Education in 1999.

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