Kathrada’s gift to SA
Struggle stalwart’s friendship with Mandela helped shape our nation
Ahmed Kathrada died in a week described by the Save South Africa Campaign as a possible tipping point — President Jacob Zuma was planning his “final act of treachery” in the state capture project.
On the day SA lost “a world leader, a man of morality, untarnished honesty, self-sacrifice and integrity”, it became increasingly clear that Zuma intended to remove one of the few Cabinet ministers who “stood in the way of his attempts to get unfettered access to the people’s money”, the organisation said.
“It is widely speculated that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan will be removed from office and be replaced by a Gupta surrogate such as Brian Molefe. We call on all South Africans to honour ‘Uncle Kathy’ by standing up to defend the values and beliefs he pursued all his life.”
Kathrada’s determination to ensure SA developed into a nonracial democracy through the work of a government committed to liberating the poor, resulted in him speaking out about politicians using their positions to enrich themselves, years before his other comrades.
In March 2016, he wrote a letter to Zuma, listing what he thought had gone wrong under Zuma’s leadership: the Gupta family playing cabinet-makers when Nhlanhla Nene was dismissed as finance minister; the Constitutional Court ruling against the way Parliament handled the Nkandla scandal, and the president’s failure to uphold the Constitution.
He then asked: “Dear Comrade President, don’t you think your continued stay as president will only serve to deepen the crisis of confidence in the government of the country?
“Today I appeal to our president to submit to the will of the people and resign.”
In October 2016, when 101 ANC stalwarts expressed concern about the manner in which Gordhan was being targeted, the first name on the petition was Kathrada’s.
On Tuesday, the stalwarts marked his death in a short press release noting his unselfish service to his country.
A few minutes later, they issued a longer statement, asking: “How can we have the president of the ANC who ignores its own constitution; how can we accept decisions over ministerial appointments that cannot be in the interests of the economy; how can we have members of government who live beyond their income levels; how can we accept the emergence of ethnic and tribal factionalism? Yet that is the reality we face every day.”
Despite the massive role he played in the liberation struggle alongside Nelson Mandela, Kathrada never yielded to the temptations of wealth.
After his release from prison, where he spent 26 years, he said: “I didn’t deserve to be elevated to the status of what I call the A Team.”
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
Following his release and the ANC’s unbanning, Kathrada headed the ANC’s department of information and publicity. In 1991, he was elected to the ANC’s national executive committee. He became a member of Parliament in 1994 and was picked by Mandela to serve as the minister of correctional services. However, he gave up that position when the need arose to give the IFP a seat in the new government of national unity.
Building a nonracial society was an abiding passion Kathrada took on as a child and it was his life’s work until he was admitted to hospital this month.
He was born in SchweizerReneke in the year of the Great Depression, 1929. Describing his childhood, he said: “Without questioning why, I simply accepted the fact that Mr David Mtshali, the principal of the African school, was coming to our house in the afternoons to teach me ABC and 1,2,3.
“However, the real reason hit me like a bolt from the blue — it was traumatic and tearful. At the tender age of about eight, I was to be actually wrenched away from my mother and father in Schweizer-Reneke and driven all the way to Johannesburg to attend an Indian school.”
The trauma was compounded by the realisation that there was a system of racism in the country, manifested in his new home city by signs that decreed “Europeans Only” and “Non-White Entrance”.
A precocious child, he heard talk of a Yusuf Dadoo and was thrilled by an opportunity to speak to the doyen of the Communist Party of SA (CPSA). He befriended Essop Cachalia and other children whose parents were involved in politics.
At the age of 11, Kathrada was distributing political pamphlets and scrawling slogans on walls. He was 12 years old when he joined the Young Communist League. He met ANC and CPSA heavyweights such as Ruth First, Duma Nokwe, Harold Wolpe and Paul Joseph, and by 1943, was elected to the youth league’s Johannesburg district committee.
In 1944, when Mandela, Walter Sisulu and other young radicals launched the ANC Youth League and rejuvenated the mother body, Kathrada was secretary of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress and had an active role in the Passive Resistance Campaign.
In the late 1940s, he became friendly with Sisulu and other ANC Youth Leaguers, describing Mandela as an “extreme nationalist, though not a racialist”. Mandela at that time rejected the idea of alliances with non-African organisations.
After the National Party came to power in 1948, they banned the CPSA and several of its members. Kathrada and his comrades organised protests against the bannings and he saw the inside of cells in almost every prison in Johannesburg.
In 1950, the ANC, the CPSA and the Transvaal Indian Congress called for a strike on the Witwatersrand. But the ANC Youth League opposed the action, arguing that the ANC’s programme of action would suffer as a result.
Mandela engaged in rough tactics, removing an Indian speaker from the platform at a meeting. Soon after that, Kathrada met him by chance and their initial “friendly exchange” developed into a heated debate about nonracial alliances.
The 21-year-old Kathrada was not yet the humble comrade he would become, and challenged Mandela to a public debate, bragging that he would “beat” him. Mandela complained about Kathrada’s disrespect at a joint meeting of the ANC and CPSA. He was prevailed upon to forgive the impudence of the young “hothead”.
Kathrada admitted years later that he was often motivated by bravado, arrogance and a need for action. He initiated some foolish escapades, but learned from his more strategic seniors and began to develop discipline and acquire wisdom.
He registered to study at Wits University in 1951, but abandoned his classes after three months to attend the World Youth Festival in Berlin, Germany. He experienced freedom for the first time in his life, which made him yearn to return to SA. He arrived back just in time to play a leading role in organising the Defiance Campaign.
In 1954, he was served with a two-year banning order, but continued to work as an organiser for the Congress of the People in 1955, where the Freedom Charter was adopted. He observed the proceedings from a rooftop as banned people were prohibited from attending political gatherings.
In December 1956, police swooped on anti-apartheid activists and he was arrested and taken to Fort Prison. The treason trial that followed ate up five years of the lives of the 156 accused, ending in March 1961 without a single guilty verdict.
GOING UNDERGROUND
Kathrada was banned again, this time for five years, and restricted to Johannesburg. When he was placed under house arrest in December 1962, he decided to go underground.
Kathrada was one of the earliest recruits to Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC’s armed wing, and served on its first regional commands. However, he decided he was not a military man, but a political organiser. He planned Mandela’s trips inside and outside the country for the 17 months the “Black Pimpernel” set up the new armed struggle.
On July 11 1963, Kathrada was arrested at Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia with Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Rusty Bernstein, Arthur Goldreich, Bob Hepple and Raymond Mhlaba.
Mandela was already in prison, serving five years for leaving the country illegally and was brought to Pretoria to face a new set of charges.
The eight accused were found guilty of sabotage, sentenced to life imprisonment and flown to Robben Island on June 13 1964.
Kathrada survived prison partly by studying, becoming the first prisoner to obtain a degree, then another degree, and then continuing his studies for nondegree purposes.
In their 26 or more years in prison, the Rivonia triallists bonded into a group with a moral authority that has not been equalled in SA. They symbolised the diverse qualities required of political activists: Mandela the leader, Sisulu the strategist, Mhlaba the man of restraint, Kathrada the sceptic.
In 1982, Mandela, Sisulu, Mhlaba and Andrew Mlangeni were moved to Pollsmoor Prison and Kathrada joined them six months later. The state began to make overtures to Mandela about negotiations to end apartheid. Of course, Kathrada argued with Mandela about the strategy to be adopted for the talks.
He was released from prison on October 15 1989, along with Mhlaba, Mlangeni, Sisulu and several others. For the first time in his life, he was truly free — from prison and the shackles of apartheid’s racism.
He began a relationship with and later married Barbara Hogan, an MK operative and former political prisoner.
Kathrada withdrew from politics and positions of influence, leading a quiet life in Killarney, Johannesburg. In 2008, he was convinced by supporters to lend his name to a body, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. It gave him a vehicle for his passions: developing a critical understanding of the ANC’s history and liberation policies; teaching nonracialism and engaging with the youth.
A recent appearance on the world stage was an emotional one. At Mandela’s funeral in December 2013, in a quavering voice, he said goodbye to his “elder brother”, bringing tears to the eyes of millions.
He supported the #FeesMustFall generation by appearing at protest sites, notably at the Union Buildings. He regarded young people’s ignorance about the history of the struggle as a factor, saying, “Freedom did not fall from heaven. It was fought for at great cost and sacrifice. And unless young people know how freedom came, they cannot be held responsible for actions and utterances that are inconsistent with the history of the freedom struggle.
“It must be a critical understanding of history that corrects distorted versions of liberation in which only certain groupings are seen to have fought for freedom,” he said.
In this era of identity politics, in which young people fracture united action by squabbling over which groups are in or out, much can be learnt from Kathrada. He played a crucial role in turning Mandela into an advocate of nonracialism, which had enormous consequences for the ANC and SA.
If that had been his only achievement — which it wasn’t — it would have been enough.