South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa announced the death of George Bizos on Wednesday in these words: “I have just received news that legal eagle of our country George Bizos has passed away. This is very sad for our country.”
Mr Ramaphosa said in an online press conference that Mr Bizos, who was 92 when he died of natural causes “had an incisive legal mind and was one of the architects of our constitution.”
Throughout his life Mr Bizos was a persistent advocate for human rights in South Africa despite the dangers that stance sometimes represented.
He was a lifelong friend of Nelson Mandela having first met the future leader of the African National Congress (ANC) when both were young law students at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in 1949. It was there that he first took up the cause of the downtrodden.
The previous year, in 1948, the Nationalist Party came to power in South Africa and introduced the concept of apartheid that called for the “separate development” of South Africa’s diverse racial groups. Apartheid was to become embedded in South African law and civic life.
Initially opposition to apartheid was expressed through passive resistance methods influenced by Mahatma Ghandi in India.
That was to change over the coming years as the government’s tactics became increasingly brutal, culminating in 1960 in the police massacre of 69 unarmed protesters at Sharpeville.
Young leaders such as Mandela had reached the conclusion that the only way to defeat apartheid was through armed resistance long before the massacre took place.
Mr Mandela was arrested in 1956 and faced treason charges with other members of the ANC. Mr Bizos was on the legal team that defended them.
READ MORE: (The Greek edition’s tribute): The Greek “brother” of Nelson Mandela, George Bizos, died
The Greek lawyer is credited with advising Mr Mandela to issue a statement of his stand against apartheid rather than face cross examination during the infamous Rivonia trial in 1964. The tactic saved Mr Mandela from a death sentence although he was to receive a life sentence instead. Mr Mandela served 27 years in prison before he was released in 1991 to lead the negotiations that would put an end to apartheid three years later.
Mr Mandela was to say of Mr Bizos’ conduct in court: “He was really devoted to the cause. When he appeared for us, he did not do so as a man who is appearing for strangers, he did so as his contribution to a great cause to which we were all committed.”
According to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Mr Mandela said during his time in prison, Mr Bizos had “looked after my family, after my children, advised my children and he made me feel that although I’m in prison, my affairs are being looked after by a man I know and I trust,” said Mr Mandela.
Mr Bizos continued to defend anti-apartheid activists in the years that followed. He was to defend Mr Mandela’s widow, Winnie, 20 times. Among many others he also defended the charismatic black consciousness leader Steve Biko who was to die under suspicious circumstances while in police custody.
George Bizos was born in Vassilitsi, south of Kalamata in 1928. When in 1941 the Germans invaded Greece, his father, who was the mayor, took his son and seven New Zealand soldiers on a caique towards Crete. They were eventually picked up by a British warship and taken to Alexandria in Egypt.
From Egypt the two were sent as refugees to the safety of South Africa which was a long way from the battles of North Africa.
Once in Johannesburg, Mr Bizos was to work in Greek shops while he learnt to speak English and Afrikaans. A Jewish lady recognised his potential and encouraged his studies.
In 2014, Mr Bizos told Neos Kosmos: “I was accused of being a traitor to the government, to the country. I was refused citizenship twice and I did not have a passport for over 30 years but I did what I thought was right.”
Once he received his passport he returned to Greece regularly visiting Vassilitsi at least once a year.
“There were people who thought that my actions brought the Greek community into disrepute. I am pleased to say that those who were against me are now very generous congratulating me on the stand that I took during the apartheid years,” said Mr Bizos.
Mr Bizos nonetheless took a lead role in the Greek community of Johannesburg in the 1960s when he was appointed the founding chairman of SAHETI (the South African Hellenic Educational and Technical Institute).
SAHETI has become one of the leading schools in the country where over 1,200 students of all races absorb aspects of Greek culture and the Greek ethos. It was an achievement that Mr Bizos was particularly proud of.
After Mr Mandela’s release in 1991, Mr Bizos continued to play a prominent role in the life of South Africa and was one of the architects of the new democracy’s constitution, considered by many to be one of the finest such documents in the world.
He continued to be a uphold human rights cases and successfully defended Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai against treason charges levelled against him by President Robert Mugabe.
READ MORE: Hellenic ideals inspired anti apartheid fighter
Such was the trust that Mr Mandela had in his old friend that he named Mr Bizos as the executor of his will and he was to play a key role in the late president’s Nelson Mandela Foundation.
“Ntate (African term of respect) Bizos was always available to support our events and to lend an ear to our challenges,” said the foundation’s CEO Sello Hatang. “He became like a well-loved uncle to us. We were in awe of him, yet he always engaged us with humility, affection, and respect.”
The foundation said of the relationship that the two great men of South Africa shared: “In the last years of Mandela’s life, they were often to be found together, just catching up, sharing memories, or heading off on car rides to see, one more time, places of significance in their life journeys.
“Whenever he was asked to talk about Bizos, Mandela turned to words of gratitude. As he once said: ‘I don’t think words can sufficiently express our indebtedness to men and women like George Bizos.’
Of his love of Greece and South Africa, Mr Bizos told Neos Kosmos: “I tell people I have ‘two Ithacas’ (an allusion to the Cavafy poem Ithaca) … Greece and South Africa. They ask me who would I support in a soccer match and I say I would shout for both and hope for a draw.”