Tributes pour in for city Moulana
TRIBUTE has been paid to Moulana Rashad Mobara, the head of the Gift of the Givers in the Northern Cape, who died recently.
Michia Moncho from the SACP in the Northern Cape said yesterday that the organisation “lowered our hammer and sickle in respect and memory of Moulana Mobara”.
Mobara matriculated at Floors High School in Kimberley and went to the University of Cape Town to study dentistry. Here his activism and love for politics started and he became actively involved in the ANC.
He later studied at Darul Uloom in Newcastle for six years and graduated and qualified as a Moulana.
In the early 1990s, because of his discipline and commitment to the movement, he was then entrusted and tasked with the safety and security of former President Nelson Mandela from Botswana to South Africa.
“He was very instrumental in the establishment of a VIP protection unit in the South African Police Services. In 1995 after the collapse of the Soviet Union in Bosnia, Moulana Mobara personally organised a march in solidarity with the oppressed people of Bosnia, where 30 000 Bosnians were killed in an ethnic cleansing campaign of muslims orchestrated by the then President of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, who later died in prison while awaiting trial for war crimes.”
Moncho said that having experienced apartheid himself, Mobara had always been at the forefront in raising the Palestinian flag and always supported their quest for their own liberation.
“He worked tirelessly and was very involved in the Boycott Divestment and Sanction of South Africa ( BDS SA) campaign in raising awareness and highlighting the plight of the oppressed people of Palestine against Israel. He lived by the words echoed by Mandela, were he said: ‘Our freedom as South Africans can never and will never be fulfilled without the freedom of the Palestinians’.”
Moncho further described him as a true human rights champion until his last moments, “hence his involvement in campaigns that sought to raise awareness and to expose the abuse of human rights, and the right for people to self determine”.
“His activism transcended religious, ethnic, political, race and gender barriers. Despite having faced numerous challenges in the movement, he remained loyal to the movement, it’s values and what it stood for. Before his death he selflessly dedicated his time in service of the working class and poor, to uplift the economically depressed communities through his volunteer work in Gift of the Givers.
“Giving relief to communities in Kimberley and the whole Northern Cape, including providing food to those who could not afford to buy their own food.
“The movement has lost a great, dedicated and disciplined cadre.”