Saving thousands of lives: the good foreigners can do

Happy New Year!

My year did not start very well.

A day after New Year at around 1am, I got a call from an Irish journalist who told me that a friend of mine in Ireland had died.

Marian Finucane was a very famous journalist, radio broadcaster and activist.

I met Marian in 2001. It was my first radio interview as South Africa's Ambassador to Ireland.

During the interview she asked me about the 1994 elections in South Africa.

I talked about how emotional it was - the long queues, old people being pushed in wheel barrows and people waiting for days to vote.

Marian looked at me intensely and suddenly she welled up. Seeing her tears I was momentarily thrown off balance.

I had told the story numerous times before to journalists, all whom would absent-mindedly nod and look at their papers for the next question. But not Marian.

She was listening; listening and feeling.

It was clear that she had a phenomenal intellect, but she also had a really big heart and had no problem showing it.

When she mentioned during the show that she had never been to South Africa, I arranged for her and her husband John to visit.

Yet, again, she was different.