Celebrating struggle icon’s legacy

TRIBUTES: ‘HE WAS IN THE TRENCHES BECAUSE HE WAS RELIABLE, DILIGENT AND COMMITTED’

We’ll never again hear his gentle voice greeting us or teasing us – Nelson Mandela CEO.

Tell Dulcie Sepati, Ruth Mompati, Steve Biko, Ruth First, Walter Sisulu, Irene Mogwayi, Raymond Hlaba, Govan Mbeki, Joe Slovo, Lilian Ngoyi, and all the others you left people behind who won’t let them down.

This was the message from Nelson Mandela Foundation CEO Sello Hatang to the spirit of Ahmed Kathrada in the wake of his death yesterday.

“Nelson Mandela called him a person of strong opinion and sharp insight,” Hatang said.

“To all of us at the Nelson Mandela Foundation Ahmed Kathrada is more than a hero of the South African liberation struggle,” Hatang said, adding Mandela and Kathrada had been friends for 67 years.

“We’ll never again see him walking through our doors with his characteristic careful, slow walk.

“We’ll never again hear his gentle voice greeting us or teasing us about all manner of things,” said Hatang.

Executive director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation Neeshan Balton said Kathrada

May our prayers be heeded for this special son of the soil

remained an activist until the end and in his last few years, had done more than 200 public engagements a year.

“This morning at 3.45am he died,” Balton said, noting the bulk of Kathrada’s family, friends, and political comrades had visited him yesterday.

Kathrada had expressed a clear desire not to be kept on a life support system, Balton said.

The only survivor who helped organise the historic Woman’s March against pass laws, Sophie de Bruin, spoke fondly of Kathrada’s home, 13 Kholvad House, 27 Market Street, Johannesburg.

This was where they used to gather in the evening with buck- ets of paint before going to paint slogans on bridges in the dark of night.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was supposed to speak, but passed the baton to Her Royal Highness Princess Zenani Mandela-Dlamini.

“For all his gentleness, Uncle Kathy was there in the trenches because he was ever reliable, diligent, and always committed,” Mandela-Dlamini said.

“There are those people who come into your life and never leave because they are truly special,” the princess said before breaking down emotionally.

“May our prayers be heeded for this special son of the soil.”