By Alan Lytle - Cami Stump
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wuky/local-wuky-963092.mp3
Lexington, KY – As part of its ongoing Kentucky and South Africa project, the University of Kentucky has unveiled a photo exhibit featuring anti-apartheid activist, Ahmed Kathrada.
The long-time friend and prison mate of Nelson Mandela, was released in 1989 and later, served as President Mandela's Parliamentary Counselor. In addition to photographs and historical accounts of the struggle to end apartheid, the exhibit includes a full-scale replica of the cell that Kathrada called home for 18 of his 26 years of incarceration. Kathrada says, he holds no ill will toward the people who put him there.
"Hatred, revenge, bitterness are negative emotions. The ones who harbor those emotions, suffer more, than the ones to whom these emotions are directed. So there was no other way out. To build a new South Africa, one nation, under one flag, we had to forgive and concentrate on reconciliation."
Visiting UK South Africa Professor Andre Odendaal, says the gallery is a vital window to the peace movement that eventually toppled a brutal regime.
"Through their sacrifice and commitment really, we had the kind of transition that we had from a violent system of apartheid to democracy that we have in South Africa. And it was people like that who embodied in a real way, the universal values of that struggle."
The Kentucky and South Africa exhibit is on display through May 31st on the first floor of UK's Lafferty Hall.