The book selects some past events and experiences, national and international, and wonders what lessons were missed, learnt, or are yet to be learnt from them. Tragedies happen again and again because we fail to learn from the past. The past is rich with valuable lessons – rich pickings. The reader is taken back into the past in search of some of those lessons, many of which, regrettably, we failed – and continue failing – to learn.  As we dig into the past for those rich pickings, there will be moments to laugh, cry or even weep; but that is exactly how lessons are learnt in life.

Other similar incidents learnt from, both abroad and at home, relate to the author’s own experiences in South Africa, including as a Judge who heard amnesty applications as a member of the Amnesty Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The book hopes to show that capacity for evil is not peculiar to any nation or race; it also discusses the dangers of tribalism. The chapter ‘Beyond the Frontiers’ takes the reader into the rest of Africa. A lot is revealed, including divisions the author witnessed – while serving as an AU judge based in Tanzania – within the AU along the languages of, ironically, colonial masters; also referenced is the sorry state of human rights in Africa. Have we seized the opportunity to learn all the valuable lessons which that great teacher, ‘The Past’, offered?

The author leaves it to readers to make their own final judgement after reading the book as to whether, at the individual and collective levels, we have learnt those lessons and taken them to heart for the good of our individual and collective destiny.      

About the Author:

Judge BM Ngoepe was born in Limpopo where he practised law for many years; first, as an attorney in Limpopo and later as an advocate in Pretoria, acquiring the status of Senior Counsel (SC) before he was appointed a Judge, where he served before taking optional retirement. Positions currently held: South Africa’s Tax Ombud; Chairperson of the Appeals Board of the Council for Medical Schemes; Chairperson of the Appeals Panel of the South African Press Council; Chairperson of the Final Appeals Committee of the Advertising Regulatory Board of South Africa, and, finally, Independent Head: Investigative Unit, Cricket South Africa.

Contents

Dedication

Note of gratitude

Foreword: Portraits and Lessons

Note on the Author

Introduction: Why I wrote

Prologue: Judges are human

CHAPTER 1: The Village Boy

• 1.1 Familial ties: Core element of African culture
• 1.2 How about some rich pickings from ancestry?
• 1.3 The generation down
• 1.4 The “naming after” practice
• 1.5 Community systems: sources of enduring knowledge and skill
• 1.6 Back to the small question regarding the learning of human rights
• 1.7 How the values were taught and learnt
• 1.8 Summation
• 1.9 The small matter of superstitions

CHAPTER 2: Spattering out of the Nest

• 2.1 Some reflections on the testing times at an African junior boarding school of the time
• 2.2 Conditions at the boarding school
• 2.3 Some quick reflections

CHAPTER 3: The daring spirit of youthfulness

• 3.1 Too good to be innocent
• 3.2 Lessons from the commitment of white teachers

CHAPTER 4: Testimony: Black teachers who taught and taught

CHAPTER 5: Triumph over Bantu Education

• 5.1 Recognizing and paying tribute
• 5.2 Reality of harm
• 5.3 Picking on a few lessons
• 5.4 Subsequent generations?

CHAPTER 6: Some echoing themes from university life

• 6.1 Divide and rule
• 6.2 The rare privilege of getting to university
• 6.3 Superior by virtue of colour in supposedly hallowed academic corridors
• 6.4 The role of white lecturers in perspective, and lessons to learn
• 6.5 The triumph of intellectualism over ethnicity
• 6.6 Were the apartheid proponents also driven by fear of black knowledge and skills?
• 6.7 The valuable lesson of being pragmatic in life
• 6.8 University students who passed and passed and passed…

CHAPTER 7: In the midst of a complex society

CHAPTER 8: Trials and tribulations as an attorney

• 8.1 Generosity across racial lines
• 8.2 In a country ravaged by racism, how are we to react to it?
• 8.3 The matter of subtle racism
• 8.4 The sin of ‘self-discrimination’
• 8.5 The haunting evil of bedroom apartheid
• 8.6 Training or gate keeping?
• 8.7 Influx control: The antithesis of the call by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (one of the greatest sins of apartheid: influx control)
• 8.8 Black Lawyers Association – transformation

CHAPTER 9: Why they did not fail

• 9.1 Pragmatism
• 9.2 Belief in the attainment of an objective
• 9.3 Patience and perseverance
• 9.4 The closing whisper

CHAPTER 10: Letting the sky be the limit

• 10.1 Wrestling with the risk factor
• 10.2 The issue of planning: overplanning or under-planning?
• 10.3 The case for multicultural understanding in a multicultural society
• 10.4 Death sentence or no death sentence?
• 10.5 Running the gauntlet of defending political cases
• 10.6 Some of the lessons from political trials
• 10.7 Black alienation from the judicial system and inequality before the law
• 10.8 A quick whisper behind the lawyers’ backs

CHAPTER 11: Through the lens of a judge

• 11.1 The context in which one was appointed (as a black judge)
• 11.2 Becoming a judge: The urge to help put things right
• 11.3 The need to be alive to the impact of one’s powers
• 11.4 Common objective as a uniting force
• 11.5 Peeping behind the curtain: A few judicial conventions  regarding how judges work
• 11.6 Lessons from taking the law into own hands
• 11.7 Relationship between the Judiciary and the Executive
• 11.8 From the perspective of the Judiciary of the military

CHAPTER 12: Taking a leap of faith

• 12.1 Human capacity for paradigm shift
• 12.2 The centrality of the Judiciary
• 12.3 Revelations and confirmations out of the process

CHAPTER 13: The ultimate challenge: Judicial transformation

• 13.1 Appointment and role as Chair of the Magistrates Commission
• 13.2 Taking the bull by the horns as Judge President: transforming the High Court
• 13.3 Appointment to vital positions: area of fierce contestation
• 13.4 Telling dynamics of my appointment
• 13.5 Unpacking the landing
• 13.6 Post-landing experiences: what to make of them
• 13.7 Unpacking transformation
• 13.8 The matter of the court language
• 13.9 The Judicial Service Commission
• 13.10 Parting shot

CHAPTER 14: Across the frontiers

Epilogue: The Hope

Professionals

Trade

Students

Key Features and Benefits

• The present book is a series of distinctive and intricately connected episodes of the author’s enthralling life story. The judiciously crafted memoir straddles the nightmare of the apartheid era of the 20th century and the promise of the democratic dispensation of the new millennium. 
• Ngoepe’s photograph and portrait in these galleries capture seminal moments in his life.
• It is also dedicated to Diabetes Association of South Africa, to whom royalties are donated for the first three years from the date of the publication of this book, for their untiring and noble effort.