Spotlight on role of women in ANC

THE burning debate over whether the ANC was ready for its first female president came to the fore again on Friday when Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu raised questions about the current background role of women who had played major parts in the country’s liberation struggle.

Delivering the Adelaide Tambo Memorial Lecture at the Nelson Mandela Central Hospital’s resource centre, Sisulu argued that despite her immense contribution, very little was known about Tambo’s role in the struggle.

Instead many women like her found themselves being relegated to “so and so’s wife”, she said.

The lecture formed part of the International Women’s Day celebrations.

Tambo, who died at the age of 77 in 2007, was married to the ANC’s longestserving president Oliver Reginald Tambo.

Sisulu said “mama Adelaide” was not just a woman who took care of an “illustrious” man in O R Tambo, but she had contributed immensely to the liberation struggle in her own right.

“She met O R Tambo at a branch meeting where she was branch chairperson – a position she attained at the age of only 18,” she said. “He was just an ordinary member. She was already an accomplished leader.”

Sisulu argued that despite having women of her calibre, all the leaders of the ANC Youth League had been men.

“Our past is not complete without her. We could spend the whole day talking about her.

“But if you were to Google the name of Adelaide Tambo, you’d find only a page on her,” she added.

The minister challenged O R Tambo district municipality mayor Nomakhosazana Meth, whose municipality hosted the event as part of the O R Tambo Centenary Celebrations, to commission university students to conduct studies on the role Tambo had played in the liberation struggle.

The mayor had argued that the country could never claim to be free as long as women were still victims of gender-based violence.