Special Report Transcript Episode 78, Section 3, Time 18:44

I haven’t stopped coming home and when I started watching what was going on, especially in terms of the Truth Commission, it really struck a chord. I mean it’s absolutely a universal subject, one of forces of good and evil; that are completely universal. And it reminded I guess of the Nuremberg trials and maybe being a Jewish white South African said a lot. And it seemed a very obvious thing for me to do and one that I felt extremely motivated to do. // Joyce Mtimkulu, the visit to her in the township, her dignity, her anger, her fortitude. I had heard that she still had the hair of Siphiwo and I asked her how she felt about having them in the photograph. We were in her backyard and she held this up and it reminded me of a kind of black power symbol or something, this kind of symbol of power. And it symbolized her pain and her power and I think that that picture is incredibly expressive of those two things: the frown on her brow, the hair in her hand, the anger, the pain that she’s carrying. // I went to Coetzee’s house in Pretoria and immediately I was struck by the phenomenal … that he’s actually incarcerated himself. It doesn’t matter what happens in the future or in the past, he is in prison himself and that’s what it seemed to me. And I kept noticing … we had this kind of tea on tea bone china or whatever it was, nice cutlery and he kept walking around with this little wallet. And finally I said to him what is in that wallet? He says it’s my gun. He said I go everywhere with it. He said I go to the toilet with it. I go to the bathroom with it. And I said well then how do you feel about being photographed with this incredibly important utensil? And he said no, no that would absolutely be fine. And then he held it with this mixture of power and fear. // It’s a set of portraits, and I would hope that it is a truthful and honest set of portraits of people who’ve been involved in a historical drama really.

Notes: Gillian Edelstein; Photo: Sinqokwana Malgas, Father Lapsley, Joyce Mtimkulu; Photo: Dirk Coetzee; Photo: Joyce Seipei

References: there are no references for this transcript