“How will revenge educate my children or put food on my table?”
– Themba Vundla
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There are certain moments of clarity that stay with you. When you really learn the meaning of something for the first time and it shakes you to your core. A reckoning of sorts. When the apple falls from the tree and you feel the gravitational pull of the moment. How did I find myself in a squatter camp outside Johannesburg, South Africa, wondering if I was about to die?
What’s the best place to start?. . as I haven’t thought about this for some time. There are a few seemingly disconnected threads that I’ll try to tie together:
Helping my parents buy a computer
The killing of Amy Biehl
Turning shipping containers into health clinics
Nelson Mandela’s presidential inauguration
After finishing my sophomore year at Columbia, I received a Human Rights Grant to work in South Africa for the summer. I was supposed to travel to Johannesburg for June and July of 1993 to work on a human rights-related issue. I needed to postpone my trip by a few months to help my parents with a small but growing business they had started. My father was managing the business on old financial ledger paper while he maintained a full-time job elsewhere. My mom needed help. They asked me to buy this relatively new thing called a home computer to “computerize the business.” So instead of going to South Africa as planned, I spent my summer researching computers and small business accounting software.
I called the Human Rights Institute at Columbia and asked if I could use the grant award the following summer. The head of the institute replied “Sure. The grant is yours. You can even use it during the school year if you want to take time off from your studies.” A door opened. I walked through it. I decided to take that fall semester off and booked my ticket to South Africa for the end of September. I then spent an extended summer helping my parents with the business. We selected the Macintosh II, and I installed an integrated accounting package called MYOB (manage your own business). It’s how I learned accounting for the first time.
The prospect of going to South Africa was the opportunity of a lifetime. I was only 6 years old when my family immigrated from South Africa. As the youngest by far in the family, I was insulated from so much of the turmoil of immigration, but remember hearing so many stories about the trials and tribulations of leaving South Africa that I wanted to learn my family’s story and understand for myself why my parents made such a gut-wrenching choice to uproot the family and move to America. I was also fascinated by the politics of South Africa. As an idealistic political science major, I wanted to be a part of the massive changes sweeping the country, driven by the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison and the dismantling of the oppressive apartheid system.
And then, a few weeks before I was supposed to leave, Amy Biehl was killed in a township outside Cape Town on August 25th 1993. Amy had graduated from Stanford and was a Fulbright scholar working in South Africa on voter education and the role of women in the struggle for democracy in the country. She was killed just a few days before she was supposed to return to the US to complete her PHD at Rutgers. After a farewell dinner in Cape Town, she drove 3 colleagues back to their home in Guguletu, a township nearby. Driving in to the township, Amy’s car was surrounded by a group of youths chanting “one settler, one bullet.” She was dragged out of her car and beaten, stoned and stabbed to death. 4 of the youths were convicted of murder and sent to jail for 18 years. They were members of the more radical armed wing of the ‘Pan-Africanist Congress’ or PAC. Violence was on the rise in South Africa in the lead up to the country’s looming elections.
I remember talking to my parents about whether it still made sense for me to go given recent events and potential safety concerns. Had I have gone to South Africa in June as planned, I would have already returned to the US before the tragic murder of Amy Biehl, without a need to second guess my decision. To their credit, my parents left the decision up to me. I chose to go. After all…If not now, when?
I ended up taking a full year off college to work in South Africa during the lead up to Nelson Mandela becoming the country’s first democratically elected president in April 1994. The eyes of the world were focused on South Africa during that time, prepared for the worst, but hoping for the best. Heartbreaking events certainly unfolded across the country symbolized by the killings of Chris Hani and Amy Biehl. Murders spiked to about 27,000 people killed in 1994 – roughly 75 people a day, driven by political violence. South Africa’s long walk to freedom certainly had heartbreaking casualties. The handover of power from an oppressive white regime to a multiracial, democratic government without full blown revolution or war was unprecedented in world history. I remember the look of anticipation and awe on the faces of black South Africans lined up for what seemed like miles waiting to vote for the very first time. I remember the sheer joy of throngs of people dancing at Mandela’s presidential inauguration.
I learned that the core of this ‘peaceful’ transition hinged on the uniquely human choice to forgive.
So what was I doing as a naive 21 year old, sitting in the home of the local leader of the PAC in Orange Farm, a shanty-town style squatter camp that had sprung up outside Johannesburg? I was having lunch in Themba’s home. We were driving to scout a location nearby to place two large, steel shipping containers that were being outfitted and turned into a health clinic. On our way to the project, Themba invited me for lunch in his home. And as we got to talking, he told me he was the local leader of the PAC – the same group that had killed Amy Biehl several months earlier. My heart sank and my mind raced. I felt fear. Was this the part where a group of angry youth would rush in, drag me outside and stab me to death? I ate my “pap and wors’ quietly as I realized that the only thing to do was stay calm and talk.
I decided to tread lightly and asked Themba if he was supportive of the changes taking place in the country? His response filled me with relief and shifted my perception of the world and the choices we can make as people to remain stuck in the past or free ourselves to embrace the future. I wasn’t going to die in that home. I’ll never forget the response. Themba said, “how will revenge educate my children or put food on my table? The only path forward is forgiveness.” He went on to say “It is impossible to forget what happened, but the only practical way forward is to forgive.” So simple and powerful. We’ve all heard the term “forgive and forget.” I realized then that you have to separate these two concepts. You can’t forget. But you must learn to forgive.
Themba and I became close friends. We worked on a project together for a non-profit to raise money to convert 12 large steel shipping containers into usable facilities like a health clinic, classrooms for a school, and a community library (where we had a college in the US donate 100,000 books).
Mandela’s presidential inauguration in May of 1994 at the Union Buildings in Pretoria marked the end of apartheid and the birth of a nation. Witnessing these events unfold changed me forever. I felt awe at what I beheld and gratitude for being able to participate. I remember the look of fear on the face of a white police officer as the crowd rushed toward him at the inauguration. That fear turned to excitement as they raised him on their shoulders and cheered. He pumped his fists and cheered, too. I remember fighter planes flying overhead to salute Mandela, leaving the colors of the new South African flag in their wake. A hush fell over the crowd as military might still symbolized fear and oppression. World leaders who would never before sit on the same stage did so for Mandela. Castro and Clinton. Arafat and Peres. If Mandela could lead this country to peace, perhaps there was a way forward for the rest of the world? The optimism was palpable. Perhaps organized and institutional forgiveness presented a new model for peace.
In 1998, Amy Biehl’s 4 killers applied for amnesty through the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This unique court created an opportunity for people who committed politically-driven crimes to come forward and plead their case and ask for amnesty. The TRC created a place to put the hate of the past and provided a structured way of achieving forgiveness, without which It’s unclear if the country could have moved on from the sins of the past. Of the 7,100 applications to the TRC, about 1,200 cases were heard and 900 sentences were commuted. So about 16% of applicants were given an audience, and of those cases heard, about 75% were granted clemency. Amnesty was given to those who felt genuine contrition, apologized for what they did and exposed it to the world in often gory details, and whose motivations were deemed to be political and not criminal or economic in nature. Amy Biehl’s 4 killers who were aged 18-22 at the time and had served roughly 5 years in jail, were granted amnesty.
As a new parent, I’m not sure I can fathom the maturity and grace needed to forgive the intentional death of one’s own child. Not only did Amy’s parents forgive their daughter’s murderers, they hugged their parents, and set up a foundation in Amy’s memory in South Africa that ultimately employed two of the four men. This is mind blowing material, and I would encourage everyone to watch this CNN episode with both mother and daughter’s murderer interviewed together. I still watch this story with admiration and tears.
There’s a coffee shop near me that often puts famous quotes from ancient philosophers on a big screen. One of my favorites is from Cicero, a Roman philosopher who lived around 50 BC: “Gratitude is not only the most important of virtues, it’s the parent of all others.” Well I think there’s a lot of truth in that. If that’s the case, then I think forgiveness is the parent of gratitude.
End note:
As fate would have it, I find myself with some time on my hands and have decided to write a few essays to capture moments of my life that have been foundational for me. I write this essay on August 25th 2025, the anniversary of Amy’s death. As fate would also have it, Amy was born on April 26th, the anniversary of the inaugural day of South Africa’s first democratic elections – April 26th 1994.
To pay it forward, I fund 3 fellowships each summer through the Columbia Human Rights institute for students to work abroad for non-profits on human rights issues. Experience is the greatest teacher, with the world as the classroom.
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