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[00:00:00] Melissa Fleming

My guest this week is a remarkable man. He was arrested, kept in solitary confinement in apartheid South Africa, but he went on to help write the South African Constitution and to work with Nelson Mandela. 

 

[00:00:14] Nicholas Haysom

Well, he was a tremendously gracious man, so working with him was wonderful. Deeply dedicated to his convictions, and I think people often think simply of a gentle, kind old man, but he was steely in the conviction he had that he was embarking on the right path. And he persevered, and as I say to my children, 'The lesson of Mandela is not just being a nice person. It's perseverance in your ideals that will change the world.' 

 

[00:00:55] Melissa Fleming

Nicholas Haysom has never stopped working for peace and human rights. These days he is Special Representative of the Secretary-General for South Sudan and the Head of the UN mission there. From the United Nations, I'm Melissa Fleming. This is Awake at Night. Welcome, Nicholas.

 

[00:01:21] Nicholas Haysom

Thank you very much for having me on your show. 

 

[00:01:23] Melissa Fleming

Thank you. I believe you're known as Fink. 

 

[00:01:27] Nicholas Haysom

Yes, it's a nickname I've had since I was a toddler, and I've tried from time to time to ditch it, but I found that in the media, in any event, they just add it in brackets or in apostrophes, so I've given up and resigned to being Fink. 

 

[00:01:45] Melissa Fleming

Okay. Well, then we'll call you Fink today. And anyway, we're going to be speaking about your distinguished career, which was focused on human rights and mediation. And we'll get to that part later in the interview, but I wanted to start and ask you about your political awakening in apartheid South Africa, because you grew up in a white family in Durban. And I wonder when did you first become aware of the environment you were living in and apartheid? 

 

 

 

[00:02:24] Nicholas Haysom

I think one grows up aware of the basic distinction that is being drawn between black and white, between servants and masters and mistresses from an early age. And I was certainly conscious of it. I should say that I grew up in a liberal environment in which apartheid and racism were frowned upon and we openly discussed politics at home, and I think at the schools I went to. So, there was no sense that it was a forbidden topic. And we grew up with a very strong sense of racial equality in my house, and that was replicated by my siblings. 

And I think I would give some credit, especially to my mother, who was an activist of a kind in raising attention about the inequities and cruelties of apartheid, and the daily humiliations that black South Africans were compelled to undergo. Bear in mind that apartheid was systematic racial discrimination. It wasn't hidden, it wasn't unconscious, it was visible and in your face. 

Whereas many people, I think after apartheid confessed to some surprise as to what was implicated in the implementation of apartheid, I must say that from an early age I was clearly aware. And I think it would have been really surprising if I hadn't been able to kind of witness and acknowledge the cruelty of systematic racial discrimination. I think as we got older, of course, we became relatively critical of our own parents who had been critics of apartheid but had been beneficiaries of the sort of economic underpinnings of racial discrimination. 

 

[00:04:35] Melissa Fleming

You became critical of your parents, even though they were quite activist. When did you decide that you were going to get involved in fighting this system? 

 

[00:04:49] Nicholas Haysom

Well, I think when I entered university, I had politically conscious parents and siblings and who had been involved as activists, so it was easy enough for me to sort of slip into that same mold and become a critic of apartheid. Remember apartheid had many facets, including a really cruel security framework which saw various activists die in detention under torture, and these were issues covered in the newspapers. So, it's always surprised me that people should profess to being startled to hear the facts and figures that underwrote apartheid. 

 

[00:05:39] Melissa Fleming

I wonder if you were ever fearful of becoming an activist because the danger was there, or fearful for your mother being so outspoken. 

 

[00:05:50] Nicholas Haysom

Not really. I think we grew up in an environment in which opposing apartheid was in fact a sign of your humanity rather than a source of fear. It was an environment... Certainly, I remember at least one of my lecturers at university being assassinated, not the first. In the course of my engagement, the period in which I was engaged as an activist, a number of friends and acquaintances died as a result of police action or repression. So yes, it was ever-present. The danger and threat of living in an authoritarian state were always there but I think very much part of life. 

 

[00:06:43] Melissa Fleming

But it didn't stop you from continuing to be active yourself. And like many others, you were arrested. How did that happen? 

 

[00:06:53] Nicholas Haysom

Well, I was arrested on several occasions, once while leading a student march in sympathy with students in Soweto who were being mistreated by the police. On other occasions when I was suspected of being a member of the underground, I refused to testify a trial involving SWAPO [South West Africa People's Organisation] that concerned Namibia and Namibia's struggle for independence. I was sentenced to a five-year house arrest order. So, all in all, there were five or six instances in which I was either detained or arrested. The detentions were almost always carried out under a regime of solitary confinement. So, you had time to consider and reflect on your own position. Yeah, it was part of the beat. 

 

 

[00:07:56] Melissa Fleming

What was your longest detention? 

 

[00:07:58] Nicholas Haysom

I did six months in solitary confinement in about 1980. 

 

[00:08:04] Melissa Fleming

And what were the conditions like? 

 

[00:08:07] Nicholas Haysom

Well, solitary confinement, you just have to adjust. There's nothing you can do about your circumstance. You can't sit down and cry. You've just got to weather it, try and manage some kind of timekeeping so that you would be aware of how long you'd been in detention because you could lose focus and grip quite easily. Yeah.

 

[00:08:35] Melissa Fleming

I believe it's considered a form of torture, actually. 

 

[00:08:39] Nicholas Haysom

Well, I think if someone had to lock me up in my hotel room, throw away the key, leave me there for days, I would probably go nuts. But, you know, when it's sort of part of the conditions under which one works and lives, it's just something that one has to get used to. 

 

 

 

[00:08:57] Melissa Fleming

So you felt it was part of your purpose and your destiny and your struggle. 

 

[00:09:04] Nicholas Haysom

I think so, yeah. 

 

[00:09:07] Melissa Fleming

Did you have friends in the black community? 

 

[00:09:11] Nicholas Haysom

Increasingly, I would have to acknowledge that when I went to school, schools were largely segregated and I think even universities were, although not formally segregated, were largely segregated spaces. But as I became more involved in politics and as an activist, of course one's group of political acquaintances grew, and they grew really without reference to colour. 

 

[00:09:39] Melissa Fleming

And you studied law at the universities of Natal and Cape Town and became the president of the National Union of South African Students, but you also decided to study law. Was that a form of activism for you, that decision? 

 

[00:09:56] Nicholas Haysom

I think so eventually. I had some misgivings. I felt the law and the legal route was not going to be a way in which South Africa would transform. But I think as I came to the end of my university career, it certainly offered ways and means of engaging with the conditions under which people lived and worked, which enabled one to productively engage in trying to change the world as we found it. 

 

 

 

[00:10:32] Melissa Fleming

Did you ever, during that time, ever imagine that apartheid would really end? 

 

[00:10:39] Nicholas Haysom

No, we never thought it would end. And I remember attending a conference in Paris in which one of the academics predicted the dramatic changes which happened in 1990 when Mandela was released, and we simply found it too incredible to believe. And within a year, the entire landscape and political landscape had changed. So that's, I suppose, a lesson for us all that things can change and do change, and they can change remarkably quickly. And one of the challenges, I think, of being an activist, as I was then, is one's capacity to adapt to those changes and to make the most of them. 

 

[00:11:30] Melissa Fleming

How did you feel, yourself, when Nelson Mandela was released? 

 

[00:11:34] Nicholas Haysom

Oh, it was a tremendous moment. It was like history in the making, being touched by the fact that one's world was changing. He was of course larger than life and there was more to that transformation than the release of Nelson Mandela, but he was a giant. 

 

[00:11:55] Melissa Fleming

Can you remember the moment and where you were when you heard the news and what you did.

 

[00:11:59] Nicholas Haysom

Yes, I can remember. I was in Johannesburg, and we were watching it on television. And I can remember the footage of him walking out of I think it was Victor Verster Prison, surrounded by friends and comrades and family. Yes, it'll live with me forever. 

 

[00:12:20] Melissa Fleming

And what did you do, you and your friends? 

 

[00:12:23] Nicholas Haysom

Well, nothing really. I was by that stage already a member of a very activist human rights law firm, and a law firm which conducted much of the cutting-edge labour legislation, labour litigation in the country at the time. So, we continued to basically build the as it were... So, our task was building the muscles of a popular organization against apartheid and the government as it then was. 

 

[00:12:58] Melissa Fleming

You went on to become Mandela's legal and constitutional advisor. How did that happen? 

 

[00:13:05] Nicholas Haysom

Well, I was asked by the ANC [African National Congress] to join its legal and constitutional negotiations team, the Constitutional Commission, as it was called. And so, I spent two or three years in the midst of a very exciting group of intellectuals whose task it was to negotiate and to conceptualize the kind of new South Africa that we wanted to build and to negotiate with the National Party government on how we would get there. 

And getting there was also as complicated as trying to find the kind of formula for a perfect constitutional state that properly appreciated the need for equality amongst all its citizens. Recreated a social contract, which we wanted to be a lesson for the world really. I think when you make your country's constitution, you have a real sense, maybe rightly or wrongly, that you're making the history of your own country and helping its people reach an understanding of how they can live together. 

And we wanted to do, or to create the best model. Having been a kind of example of how not to do it, of having been recognized as a pariah across the world, we now had an opportunity of doing something that was new and exciting, could find formulations of human rights and the ways in which people enforce them, which would set new standards. And I think, quite frankly, for many years, and I don't know the case is still the case, but the South African Constitution is still regarded as perhaps one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. It was both exciting in the conceptualization part, but also in the implementation. And I think that's what led to me being asked to be Mandela's legal advisor in the office of the presidency while he was president. 

 

[00:15:22] Melissa Fleming

What was it like working for him? 

 

[00:15:24] Nicholas Haysom

Well, he was a tremendously gracious man. So, working with him was wonderful. He was a man who was deeply dedicated to his convictions. And I think people often think, when they think of Mandela, they think simply of a gentle, kind old man, but he was steely, strong in the conviction he had that he was embarking on the right path. And he persevered, and as I say to my children, 'The lesson of Mandela is not just being a nice person, it's perseverance in your ideals that will change the world.' 

 

 

[00:16:03] Melissa Fleming

What are your most vivid memories of him? 

 

[00:16:06] Nicholas Haysom

Well, I just think working with him. I used to see him every morning. And discussing the issues, I would particularly pay credit to his approach to the law, to the rule of law, for which I was relatively skeptical, but he was adamant that his first government would set an example in respect for the rule of law and ensuring that the ANC, who were deeply skeptical of many of the judges who came from the Ancien R¨¦gime, would not understand or respect the new values which should inform the new constitution. 

And he was really at the forefront of creating a society built on the respect for legal equality and human rights. He really committed to bringing people across, whether it was his old political competitor, Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, or the old white general, Constand Viljoen. He treated them all with the greatest respect in the belief that they could be persuaded to join the new legal project, constitutional project. And I think he was successful in doing that. 

 

[00:17:40] Melissa Fleming

How do you think the experience of seeing, living, being part of removing apartheid from the system has marked you in the way you approach your work today? 

 

[00:17:56] Nicholas Haysom

Sometimes it seems a long time ago. And I've really had the good fortune of being engaged in other scenarios where people have been engaged in the struggle for dignity and respect in life and rights. So, South Africa for me was not the only case in the world where there was a breach of rights or travesty of rights. And I recognized quite quickly that, in fact, all over the world were South Africas of one kind or another requiring engagement. To some extent, the South African model and example would be of use, in some cases not. But the underlying logic was just about always there that people have to find new ways of living together which respects each other's dignity. 

 

[00:18:58] Melissa Fleming

The first words in the UN Charter - all people should be treated with dignity and in human rights and equality. And maybe is that what brought you to start working at the UN? 

 

[00:19:11] Nicholas Haysom

Well, after Mandela's term as president had finished, he received a phone call from the late Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania, who had asked him, 'Can you lend me a lawyer?' Because he was then, that is Julius Nyerere, was working on trying to find a solution to the conflict in Burundi. Perhaps crudely known as a sort of conflict between two ethnic groups - Hutus and Tutsis. But which had seen some really awful massacres in the course of the conflict between the two groups. So, I joined President Nyerere's team, which would eventually lead to a Burundian peace agreement. 

And when the ink on that agreement dried, I was asked to become involved in trying to find a formula to bring peace to Sudan. Sudan was then involved in a bitter conflict between its north and its south and had been unable to find a formula to even sit down and discuss matters. And I spent several years working in Kenya on the mediation which would lead to the Comprehensive 91ÖÆƬ³§ Agreement for Sudan. And that peace agreement would eventually lead to a referendum. We saw the south, southern part of Sudan secede and form its own republic. In 2011, it became the world's youngest country. So that's how I ended up there. 

Somewhere in between, after the Sudan peace agreement I was contacted by someone in the UN and asked if I would work in leading a constitutional advisory team in the UN. It had never had an advisory team on constitutional issues before. But in Iraq with a particular objective of trying to find a way in which the many communities in Iraq, but particularly Shia, Sunni and Kurds could find a formula for living together. And so, I spent two years in Iraq and then was asked to come and join Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's team. 

 

[00:21:54] Melissa Fleming

How do you stay hopeful? After the rule of law comes, peace agreements come and then break down. 

 

[00:22:08] Nicholas Haysom

There was a time when I was quite probably inappropriately proud of my engagement, particularly in Burundi and in Sudan and in South Africa where the engagement and the approach we'd adopted had yielded fruit. But after a few years, I looked around and found that almost all of those peace agreements were in trouble. So, it's a recognition that peace agreements don't last forever, that peace itself doesn't last forever. Democracy is not something that can be taken for granted. These are all issues which require kind of constant engagement by people of good intent. 

 

[00:22:54] Melissa Fleming

And needs continuous nurturing. 

 

[00:22:58] Nicholas Haysom

Exactly, yeah. 

 

[00:23:00] Melissa Fleming

Is there a place that really marked you in terms of just you feeling very attached to it for some reason? 

 

[00:23:10] Nicholas Haysom

The South African one is really quite distinctive because, in a sense, the two major parties reached an agreement that they had to find another way of ruling together. In almost none of the other cases has there been an early recognition that the parties were required to find common ground, and they have been altogether much more difficult. Less cerebral, less underwritten by rationale and principle. And have been much more difficult both to arrive at, or to arrive at a settlement, and to maintain that settlement. 

 

 

[00:23:56] Melissa Fleming

It doesn't seem that you're giving up though. 

 

[00:24:00] Nicholas Haysom

No, no, no. No, I think so. I'm in a particularly challenging situation at the moment in South Sudan where this is a country which has experienced two civil wars in a decade and is struggling to find a formula and even a process by which the community can live together, can, in fact, exit what has been a lengthy transition since the last war, the last peace agreement, brought an end to the... 

 

[00:24:35] Melissa Fleming

There's still no government formed. 

 

[00:24:37] Nicholas Haysom

There is a government formed, and we are in the process of trying to assist the South Sudanese, put in place preparations for elections. And it needs to be stated that elections and drafting a new constitution, which are very exciting nation building projects, are also tremendously divisive and can fragment countries, particularly countries which have deep fault lines, pre-existing fault lines. And so, it's very important to approach these political exercises as nation-building exercises and to conduct them as ways of bringing people together so that they can develop a sense of common values, common purpose, and build a new country. So, it's a kind of nation-building exercise to compensate for the fact that it inevitably calls into question the common values of its citizens. 

 

[00:25:44] Melissa Fleming

Sometimes it seems that the citizens are kind of an afterthought or not even a thought in some of these places. Neighbouring Sudan is at war and... 

 

[00:25:59] Nicholas Haysom

Well, South Sudan has the particular challenge of trying to find a solution to these difficult political questions when its neighbour, Sudan, is in the midst of a really awful, horrible war. In which there is real tensions in Ethiopia, in Somalia, and now we see in the Congo. So, the Horn of Africa certainly does not need another war. And if South Sudan itself were to go back to war, it would be really horrid. 

 

[00:26:37] Melissa Fleming

And that's what you're trying to prevent by being the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in South Sudan. 

 

[00:26:42] Nicholas Haysom

I think so. I think sometimes we think we're trying to find the conditions for perfect elections or we're trying to create a constitution which can speak to all South Sudanese, but really what we're try to do is to avoid a relapse into conflict and to give the South Sudanese that political space they need to find their own solution. 

 

[00:27:09] Melissa Fleming

These days what is keeping you awake at night? 

 

[00:27:12] Nicholas Haysom

Well, South Sudan keeps me awake at night at the moment. I tend not to look backwards, so I don't revisit Burundi, which has been tested. Its peace agreement has been tested since it was enacted. The Sudanese proper constitution we've seen devolve into a vicious war between two militias. Iraq seems to have escaped the worst for the moment. But Afghanistan, as you know, is troubled, has some way to go, I think, before it can establish the kind of conditions in which all Afghans can live together. 

 

 

[00:27:59] Melissa Fleming

So you don't look back on your career and think I could have done some things differently? 

 

[00:28:05] Nicholas Haysom

No, I regard what I've done as a tremendous privilege. Just think I've been able to wake up every morning with this exciting in both intellectual challenges and peace-building challenges. And that has to have been a tremendous privilege. People often say, 'Well, thank you very much for your work over the years, public [inaudible] work.' And I keep thinking, 'But, far from it. I've been the beneficiary of a wonderful set of circumstances and being at the right place at the right time to enable me to work with wonderful people, to work on meaningful projects, projects which can affect the way people live together.' 

 

[00:28:55] Melissa Fleming

You mentioned that you have children. Did any of them follow in your footsteps? 

 

[00:29:00] Nicholas Haysom

Well, they range in age and accomplishments. One's a fabulous artist. The other is a very smart writer. And I have a computer boffin. And then I have two younger sons who are currently at school. I have to confess, there are moments when I take a step back and I look at the challenges children today face. I am a little in awe of what they have to do and how much they have to do. I think of the climate challenges, the current set of conflicts, which over the last few months we've had to try and grapple and understand, whether in the Middle East or in the Gulf or in Europe. I really do hold my breath that they are going to be able to... That new generation is going to find what it needs to overcome those challenges. 

 

[00:30:06] Melissa Fleming

What do you hope for now for those children? What kind of world would you like them to live in? 

 

[00:30:17] Nicholas Haysom

Well, I was sharing with somebody that I've had to come to terms with the bias I've had in my thinking that the world was on a constant linear progression, that things were going to get better. We would get more adept at dealing with the climate challenges that we ourselves have created. That we would find ways of constructing democratic states in which everybody had an equal voice, and an important voice, and a voice they appreciated. But I don't know. The last year or two have seen a hollowing out of democratic institutions, have seen awful wars erupt where we had thought war was not a possibility. So, this is no time to hang up one's boots. 

 

[00:31:19] Melissa Fleming

No time to hang up one's boots. We're sitting here together in our studio in New York. And when you walk into the UN headquarters building, you are greeted at the visitor's entrance by a statue of Nelson Mandela. Did you see it? 

 

[00:31:35] Nicholas Haysom

Yes, yeah. 

 

[00:31:35] Melissa Fleming

And how did that make you feel? 

 

[00:31:38] Nicholas Haysom

Well, just physically I need to share with you that I think it's small, it's too small. Mandela was both figuratively and physically a much bigger person than the statue and for some reason it gets to me. 

 

[00:31:54] Melissa Fleming

I believe it was a gift from your country, so we might have to have a discussion with them. 

 

[00:31:59] Nicholas Haysom

But apart from that, of course, there's a sense of pride that he is, in fact, a leading inspiration and generator of kind of a more moral approach to the way we live our lives. 

 

[00:32:16] Melissa Fleming

That's why we have him greeting people coming into UN headquarters because he's so aligned with the values and the aspirations of the United Nations. And so are you and thank you for your service and thank you for all that you've done for the rule of law and for peace. Thank you, Nicholas. 

 

 

[00:32:34] Nicholas Haysom

Thank you very much. Thank you for putting me on your programme. 

 

[00:32:40] Melissa Fleming

Thank you for listening to Awake at Night. We'll be back soon with more incredible and inspiring stories from people working against huge challenges to make this world a better and safer place. 

To find out more about the series and the extraordinary people featured, do visit un.org/awake-at-night. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and please take the time to review us. It helps more people find the show.

Thanks to my editor Bethany Bell, to Adam Paylor and to my colleagues at the UN: Katerina Kitidi, Roberta Politi, Carlos Macias, Abby Vardeleon, Laura Rodriguez De Castro, Anzhelika Devis, Tulin Battikhi and Bissera Kostova. The original music for this podcast was written and performed by Nadine Shah and produced by Ben Hillier.