Albie Sachs

(1935-) Primarily known as African National Congress constitutional expert, who was maimed and nearly killed by a car bomb in Maputo. On his return to South Africa in 1990 he was a leading figure in the development of the new constitution, but also became an influential and sometimes controversial spokesman on arts and cultural matters, including the newly formed National Arts Council (*?). Most notable was his call for a moratorium on the use of the idea of "art as a weapon", and a shift to a more positive, rebuilding approach to the arts. The debate this engendered was brought together by I. de Kok and K. Press in the book Spring is Rebellious: Arguments about Cultural Freedom by Albie Sachs and Respondents. (Cape Town: Buchu Books, 1990).

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