‘Revolutionary giant has fallen’
GOLDBERG’S ‘CONTRIBUTION REINFORCED NONRACIAL CHARACTER OF STRUGGLE’
Anti-apartheid activist Denis Goldberg, who stood trial alongside Nelson Mandela in the 1963-1964 Rivonia Trial and was imprisoned for 22 years by the regime, has died at the age of 87 at his home in Cape Town.
President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his deep condolences at the passing of Goldberg, one of the most prominent white activists in South Africa’s long struggle against racial repression.
“This is a moment for all of us to appreciate Denis Goldberg’s brave dedication to our struggle and his lifelong activism in the interest of – and in the physical presence of – poor and vulnerable communities around our country,” Ramaphosa said in a statement on Thursday.
Goldberg died on Wednesday after suffering from lung cancer for years.
Goldberg, whose family had Lithuanian Jewish origins, was born in Cape Town in 1933.
A communist, he joined the ANC’s armed wing in 1961 to oppose the apartheid regime.
“He was arrested in 1963 at a clandestine meeting in a Johannesburg suburb and stood trial with several others, including Mandela and Walter Sisulu, in what became know as the Rivonia Trial.
He was convicted on sabotage charges and sentenced to life imprisonment after the judge declined to impose the death sentence.
Being white, Goldberg was not sent to the notorious Robben Island prison along with black political prisoners like Mandela, in keeping with the apartheid regime’s philosophy that the country’s different races should not mix.
Instead, he was jailed in the capital Pretoria, where he spent most of the time in solitary confinement.
He was released in 1985 after 22 years in prison after agreeing with the government not to take part in political violence. He continued his role in the anti-apartheid struggle from exile in London.
Apartheid ended with Mandela’s victory in the country’s first free elections in 1994, but Goldberg did not return to live there until 2002 due to family reasons.
In more recent years, Goldberg criticised failures by the ANC to lift enough South Africans out of poverty.
He was especially critical of former President Jacob Zuma, who faces several inquiries over corruption allegations during and before his time in office.
“He dedicated his life to achieving the better life we enjoy today and his revolutionary contribution reinforced the nonracial character of our struggle and of our democratic dispensation,” Ramaphosa said.
Goldberg was the only white man among 150 people arrested in a police raid on their hideout in Rivonia, north of Johannesburg, in 1963.
“Somehow I understood that what was happening in South Africa with its racism was like the racism in Nazi Germany that we were supposed to be fighting against,” Goldberg said last year.
“You have to be involved one way or another. That’s what I grew up with.”
In 1961, a 28-year-old Goldberg joined the ANC’s military wing, where he made use of his technical skills as an engineer to manufacture bombs and explosives.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation called the octogenarian “a true patriot”.
The foundation’s chief officer, Sello Hatang, described Goldberg as a friend and “constructive critic” with a “naughty sense of humour”.
Goldberg challenged the cronyism and corruption that tarnished Zuma’s nine-year administration.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu hailed Goldberg’s “pragmatic human values”.
His “natural compassion shone like a candle, attracting and connecting like-minded individuals and institutions wherever he went”, the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation said in a statement.
“A giant has fallen,” said the South African Communist Party, recalling the ingenuous way in which Goldberg used wind to distribute pamphlets from the roof of his car during the 1950s.
“That is the creativity of a communist engineer,” the SACP said. “A revolutionary has breathed his last breath.”
Receiving a high-profile honour in London in 2016, Goldberg said there was “a long way to go” on race relations in South Africa.
“The racial segregation was burnt into the minds of every South African,” he said.