Kathrada a voice of integrity and morality

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 that South Africa 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 political acumen, vision and his determination to ensure South Africa developed into a non-racial democracy through the work of a government committed to liberating the poor saw him speaking out years before his other comrades about politicians using their positions to enrich themselves.

He wrote in his book, Memoirs, published in 2004: “We need to continue guarding against the temptations of careerism, self-interest and corruption.”

Last year, 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 had 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, when 101 ANC stalwarts expressed concern about the manner in which Gordhan was being targeted by the prosecuting authorities, the first name on the petition was Kathrada’s.

Following his release after 26 years in prison, he played a quiet, background role.

The former Rivonia trialist who organised defiance and an armed struggle against apartheid alongside Nelson Mandela, maintained after his release: “I didn’t deserve to be elevated to the status of what I call the A Team”.

Following their 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, but resigned from the Communist Party and went to Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage the following year.

He became an MP in 1994 and was picked by Mandela to serve as the minister of correctional services. But he gave up that position when the need arose to give the IFP a seat in the new government of national unity.

Building a non-racial society was an abiding passion Kathrada took on as a child and was his life’s work.

He was born in SchweizerReneke in 1929. “With the innocence of children we were oblivious of any differences between Ahmed and Seretse and Hendrik,” he described his childhood.

“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.”

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). At the age of 11, Kathrada was distributing political pamphlets and scrawling slogans on walls.

In 1941 he attended his first political gathering, a meeting of the Non European United Front. He was 12 when he joined the Young Communist League and by 1943 was elected to the YCL’s Johannesburg district committee. A few years later he was admitted into the CPSA.

In 1944, when Mandela, Walter Sisulu and other young radicals launched the ANC’s Youth League and rejuvenated the mother body, Kathrada was secretary of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress. He took an active role in the Passive Resistance Campaign.

When the National Party came to power in 1948, it banned the CPSA within three years and several of its members. Kathrada saw the insides of almost every prison in Johannesburg.

In 1950 the ANC, the CPSA and Transvaal Indian Congress called for a strike on the Witwatersrand. But the ANC Youth League opposed the action. Mandela engaged in rough tactics, removing an Indian speaker from the platform at a meeting.

Soon after that, Kathrada met him by chance and a heated debate about non-racial political alliances ensued.

The 21-year-old Kathrada was not yet the humble comrade he would become and challenged Mandela to a public debate. Mandela complained about Kathrada’s disrespect at a joint meeting of the ANC and CPSA.

He was prevailed on to forgive the impudence of the young “hothead”, but Kathrada was humiliated.

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. In December 1956, police swooped on anti-apartheid activists and he was arrested.

The Treason Trial that followed ended in March 1961 without a single guilty verdict.

Kathrada was banned again, this time for five years. When he was placed under house arrest in December 1962, he decided to go underground and was one of the earliest recruits to Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

He decided he was not a military man but a political organiser. He planned Mandela’s trips inside and outside the country.

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.

The seven and Mandela were found guilty of sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment. They began their sentences on June 13 1964.

Kathrada survived prison partly by studying – becoming the first prisoner to obtain a degree, then another degree.

The Rivonia trialists spent 26 or more years in prison. In 1982 Mandela, Sisulu, Mhlaba and Mlangeni were moved to Pollsmoor Prison and Kathrada joined them six months later.

He was released from prison on October 15 1989, with Mhlaba, Mlangeni, Sisulu and several others. Yet Kathrada kept returning to prison. In 1994 he became chair of the Robben Island council. He took scores of world leaders and other dignitaries to the island, giving them a firsthand account of prison life.

He married former political prisoner and MK operative Barbara Hogan.

He 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 which gave him a vehicle for his passions – developing a critical understanding of the ANC’s history and liberation policies, campaigning and teaching the practice of non-racialism and engaging with the youth.

In this time of identity politics where young people fracture united action by squabbling over which groups are in or out, much can be learned from Kathrada. He played a crucial role in turning Mandela into an advocate of non-racialism – which had enormous consequences for the ANC and South Africa.

If that was his only achievement, it would have been enough. But it wasn’t.

We need to continue guarding against the temptations of careerism, self-interest and corruption