Catch A Fire - Patrick Chamusso & Robyn Slovo Interview

PATRICK CHAMUSSO (as himself) and ROBYN SLOVO (Producer/plays Ruth First) Interview

Q1: How was it to see yourself portrayed in this film?
PC: It was good. I'm glad the film was made while I'm still alive and the story will be carried throughout the world, but for me as a person to watch, it is real painful. I don't watch it until the end. I just watch it from the wedding until the first capture. It's really painful to me. It's always reminding me back to what happened to me.

Q2: But the message is about forgiveness?
PC: If the world today was prepared to forgive one another, someone stand up and say "no, what is going on throughout the world will have to stop". Or, if I have offended this lady I don't have to wait for her to come to me. I just go to her and say, "I'm sorry. I forgive you and I'm sorry what I did offended you." If she also offended me I don't have to wait for her to come to me. I can also go there and say, "I'm sorry lady I've done wrong to you, so I forgive you and I forget." Because if you forgive only and you don't forget you are still carrying the burden in your heart. So you have to prepare to forgive and forget. So if the world wanted to do something which is good to everybody in the world, I would want them to adopt this kindness of forgiving, so this war, which is carrying on throughout the world can be stopped. Someone has to stop the cycle.

Q3: How were you able to find that forgiveness in your heart after everything you experienced?
PC: I was fortunate to have leaders like Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Governor Baker, who are tested and trusted, and who also have big hearts to forgive. And when I was on Robben Island there was a political structure that was set there by Nelson Mandela and all of our leaders, which taught us to go through this by counselling. We came to the point that, "no, it's better that we forgive these people and we live with them than chase them away and maybe when we come out we take their families or whatever they have." They say we want to rule this by force. We're better to stay with them and show them we are not vicious people, like they think we are.
RS: Also I think one of the things in South Africa is people used to say, the leadership, is that we don't behave like our enemies. They were SO brutal in South Africa so to even begin that process was more than the ANC or other fighters would ever contemplate. So they could consciously do the opposite.

Q4: Isn't it hard to not want to retaliate?
RS: It's a pretty old liberation movement in South Africa and a pretty old political party, which saw the whole of South Africa, which got its liberation at last, less than 15 years ago.
PC: The policy of the ANC was that no one died. And you must remember that the ANC was not a violent organization. It was forced from the MK (ANC Military Wing) by the regime. Then we adopted the policy that no one must die in the missions. That's why whatever is happening in this film it's teaching a lesson of not killing and forgiveness. And forgiving in what's political, not in a violent way. We still have people like deKlerk. We are still providing security for him, the people who sent us to prison. Why do we do that? To show him we are not what he thought we were.

Q5: How did they react?
PC: That's something. For them to accept this or for us to trust them, we must have a track record with them. We forgive them, but we don't trust yet. We'll have to wait and check their track record.

Q6: Again, how do THEY react?
PC: Some of them are okay, but some of them have a little fear. They think that maybe one day we can turn up and do something wrong, like what happens to Alacantes.

 

Q7: Your life is very different now with all the children you take care of. Can you talk about your current life?
PC: I stayed on Robben Island for 10 years and I learned to share with other people. My life is not different. It's still the same person, that Patrick. To take care of those children, someone must break out of the cycle. I saw that the children are suffering. Some of them are victims of Apartheid, HIV and AIDS, cancer, TB, all these diseases. So no one was there in that area for them. So I said, "Let me just do this." My wife was not agreeing with me. But now she's really doing the right thing, but at first she didn't want me to do that. It's working because those people have a house to sleep in, food to eat, clothes to wear, and they will grow up with religion and those kids won't be criminals. But if we leave those children we are creating a time bomb because they will grow up. They will come and rob you. They will come and rob me. They will be drunk out on the streets. We are creating a problem if we leave them. That's why I'm asking the world today to help me with those kids, to get them, to cloth them, and to teach them to be religious so we can create good people. These children - we used to call them orphans. There is a president there. There is a doctor there. There is a nurse there. There is a bus driver there. So we really need to have these kids. Because if you go there and you ask them what they want to be, they say, "I want to be in the nursing room." They don't know. "I want to be that man who puts in injections", which is a doctor! And all of them.

Q8: Do you think it helps that celebrities are adopting kids from Africa and other places?
PC: It does help, but to me I don't believe in coming to adopt a child and then take it away. You can adopt it and then staying there, educating him or her, send him to university and she can come and visit you because let's say you take a 2-year-old child to America. She will lose her identity of South Africa and she will become American. And we have lost that president and we have lost that doctor. But if you adopt her and educate her she will know that you are her mommy and father, but we still have a doctor here. We still have our president there.

Q9: You like what the SOS children's villages are doing?
PC: Of course. That's the way to do it.

Q10: What did you think about Precious and her actions while watching the movie?
PC: Precious knew very well that I'm a peaceful man and loving husband who loves children. And when I came from Robben Island I didn't hold a grudge against anyone. Because I didn't know what led Precious to lead the police to come and arrest me. But after I came from Robben Island she said, "Patrick, I'm sorry." That will break all the ice with me. This woman said she's sorry and we are talking about forgiveness. Let me also say I'm sorry to her. And let me forgive her. But she also went on saying, "Look Patrick, I have married somebody else and I have children with somebody else, but your daughter has passed on a trip",  which was good, that, even though I didn't see them these 10 years. So it was good and I said, " I forgive you", and even now I still have contact with her. If that could happen to any of you, you forgive your wife, your brother, your sister, your neighbour; I think it would make good couples. You can see divorce with just small things. Maybe the husband was late from work. The fact that they are not going and now I'm admitting also I'm not going, and the children suffer. But if we were prepared to sit down, both of us, and just ask questions of each other and then we can forgive each other.
RS: I've heard Patrick say that there is an understanding in what happened to Precious, in terms of this policeman, in terms of the Apartheid system...
PC: The police showed her a photograph of a pregnant woman, telling her this man is there with the other woman, and he's there with the ANC. They've given him another woman - "Look she's pregnant and this one is going to give him maybe a son or maybe twins". You know women don't take these things! Seeing a woman pregnant! They can lie forever, but a photograph doesn't lie because it was me with her. But that woman was not my wife. It was a comrade. But they had a spy who spied on us. So really you cannot blame Precious.

Q11: Did you talk to her when you were in the prison?
PC: No, they showed her that picture, I was arrested and she married a black policeman. She didn't want to do anything to me. But I do respect Precious because she heard that Patrick is coming to the harbor and she came to say sorry. That's real courage in a woman. If all women had those guts, to go to their husband and apologize, then the husband would also forgive her.

Q12: What about your daughters with her?
PC: My daughters with her, we are still on very good terms. When I came here they were at the airport saying ‘bye bye' with my granddaughters also. Only Precious doesn't come. She's got another life with somebody else and I have somebody else also. Life is carrying on.

Q13: Do you have any stories where the ideal of forgiving is tested on an every day instance like how it is shown at the end of the movie where Patrick sees Nick Vos?
RS: Our police advisor, Hentie Botha, who ran the reconciliation commission so all his crimes or misdeeds or whatever you want to call them are catalogued, worked closely with Patrick. And that, I think, is a real example. This guy was a torturer.
PC: He doesn't seem to realize that he's done wrong. To him, he was doing his job, getting money, supporting his family. And he was told if he doesn't stop the terror, if he doesn't stop us, he will lose his job and his family because we are coming to take his house and his wife and his children, which was a lie. Forgiveness, it comes from one side. I won't force you to accept my forgiveness, but it's up to you to say, "No. This man, he has forgiven me. You've forgiven me for what I've done. I've tortured you". Can we just go and have lunch or whatever. It's up to you then, but to me I forgave him and I forgot about it.
RS: I think there are people who have changed beliefs, the Apartheid cops and military guys. I think it's colossal. It's an enormous amount because what are they going to do; torture themselves for the rest of their lives? It's a big thing to face up to.
PC: Recently the Advent Flock came to Shikan and was washing his feet. He told him, "No, I'm sorry about what we were doing. Really it was very bad". Then Fran Shikan, the priest, said "Look, what about the others? You've reconciled yourself, but what about those you are working with?" Then he said, "No, it's up to them." Because forgiveness comes from the heart. If it doesn't come from the heart, forget about it. It won't work. And if you forgive and don't forget it won't work because it's still there.
RS: I think the essence of the truth and reconciliation is that by simply telling the truth they would heal, but I don't think it's true exactly. It's very tough. I think both Patrick and I would paint the most optimistic portraits of South Africa. It's a totally damaged country and there are these damaged ex-torturers or whoever they are and they are not reconstructed. But the point is they are living side by side. And that's the important thing. There are angry people and unforgiving people, but there is no hostility being enacted.

Q14: Will everyone heal?
PC: People my age will still have fear even if we meet one another. Because they know what they have done to me, but to me I have forgotten and forgiven them. At the end of the film I saw the man there, but I said I would take to this position of forgiving him. I could have gone there and break his neck, but due to the position that I took, and nobody forced me to do it, but I have to stand to that position, so that it teaches everybody, every human being, that if you take a position you have to stand to it. I know it's difficult, but if you are a real man who wants to do the right thing you have to stand to your decision.
RS: I know that we've had this conversation before and I think you are talking about reconciling, not literally forgetting.
PC: Yeah.

Q15: What did you think about Derek playing you?
PC: Derek is a good actor, but when Derek was brought to me I was told not that Derek was coming, but that the actor was coming. Then I was thinking about somebody else like Denzel Washington or Cuba Gooding Jr. or Samuel L. Jackson. And for the part of Tim Robbins I was expecting Al Pacino or other actors that I knew. I didn't know Tim and Derek. And I was also worried about Derek's American accent. But after 20 minutes of talking to him I realised the man is asking a lot of questions and he really wants to be Patrick, so I did open my heart to get him in and here he is. He learned a lot and even speaks Zulu in the film and there is no slang at all. It was part of his research. "What are you doing? What have you done before at the age of 31 years? What does your energy look like?" He asked what kind of women I love and I asked if he knew Beyoncé. He said, "No, I know Beyonce, but she is not around".

Q16: What would you say to Beyoncé if you were to meet her?
PC: I would say, "I'm the guy, I found my real dream. My dream has come true."

Q17: How do you think your wife would react?
PC: Beyoncé is a star, a celebrity. I found my favorite that I like. My wife also likes Denzel Washington and Terrence and the boys in The Best Man. She likes them and when we meet them it's her dream which comes true. It's not that I'm going to take Beyoncé home with me! No, no, no (laughs).