Activist’s selfless work remembered by many
ANC stalwart and veteran activist Dawood “Abba” Khan will be remembered for his selfless work for the betterment of his community and as an inspiration to those whose lives he touched. Ninety-year-old Khan, a former ward councillor and community activist, passed away peacefully at his home of natural causes on Friday.
Lerumo Kalako, convener for the ANC in the province, said they would always remember, respect and appreciate Khan for being involved in arranging the motorcade that took Nelson Mandela from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl on the day of his release from 27 years' incarceration on February 11, 1990.
“Comrade Khan served as an ANC councillor in the City of Cape Town, and during his career of selfless community service (he was detained in the 1960s) became chairperson of the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital board and a founding member of the Muslim Association of the Red Cross Children's Hospital as well as that of the Western Cape Traders Association,” said Kalako.
Khan, who had lived in Kensington for about 60 years, celebrated his 90th birthday during the lockdown in June last year.
Khan, a former shopkeeper, was arrested in the 1960s and detained for 180 days without trial at Caledon Square police station.
Kensington community activist Dawood Esack said he would remember Khan as a phenomenal individual who was very principled.
“I met him as a young man in 1966 while at school. Khan had also won election for the Maitland ward during 1976 and was the first non-white person to win candidacy. Mr Khan was a phenomenal individual that cared for the poor and underprivileged and something that always stood out for me was that he always spoke out for what he believed in. This is a tremendous loss for the family as well as the community.
Esack said Khan was active during his retirement years at the Hidayatul Islam mosque and primary school.
Khan was the recipient of the Mayor's Medal during 2010 where he was hailed for his passion for social welfare.
During his lifetime, Khan had served as vice-chairperson of the Kensington-Factreton Residents Association, Cape Town City Councillor, founder chairperson of the Western Cape Traders Association, founder of the Muslim Association for Red Cross Children's Hospital, and chairperson of the Red Cross Children's Hospital Board and Brooklyn Chest Hospital.
Kensington CPF chairperson Cheslyn Steenberg said: “I believe as a community we have lost a giant and a gentle soul. He was a very firm person but he lived for the community. He was like a godfather to many and for that we will miss him.”
NINETY years separate two global economic depressions, in 1930 and 2020. That is exactly the period that spans the life of Dawood Khan, from birth to his ninetieth birthday on June 8.
Abba, as those closest to him fondly call him, celebrated his ninetieth birthday this year, quietly at home in the midst of the Covid19 pandemic.
The economic depressions may be useful markers of two eras, for historical context, in Abba's life- time.
However, Abba's life is worthy of independent consideration. In his career of nearly four-and- a-half decades, he was a salesman, a businessman, an anti-apartheid activist and a politician.
The single thread that runs consistently throughout his life is his struggle for social justice. Equally important to him was his commitment to serve, particularly the elderly, whose pensions he collected and delivered.
Abba was born in Maitland and completed his schooling at Trafalgar High School.
His earliest political consciousness emerged in the late 1940s with the political discourse of his high school teachers affiliated to the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM). However, a more direct influence on Abba came from the anti- apartheid activist and businessman in Elsies River, Cassiem Allie, who inspired him to commit to a life of political activism.
His first formal political appointment was in 1966, when he won the seat of councillor against a National Party candidate.
This was a first for the area, which was routinely won by white candidates. Later that year, Abba was arrested and detained under the 180- day detention clause.
Details of Abba's arrest in 1966 appear in archived records of the famous South African author Alan Paton's newsletter, Contact, published in the same year.
The richness of Abba's political and social life, from all accounts, is astonishing. There is no formal narrative of his contribution to South African politics.
The reason is partly that he is not a conventional party-political operative. He has a firm mind of his own and does not readily conform to convention.
In his capacity as politician, Abba's life reflects individual conscience, shifting alliances and independent standing.
He was a member of the ANC, then left the ANC for COPE and then stood as an independent candidate in local council elections.
In the local elections in the Kensington and Factreton area, in 2000, his manifestoas an independent candidate read,‘No promises, no lies! Vote independent, vote Khan.'
His frank and forthright approach to community service earned him the reputation as ‘a people's person in the truest sense' by local community leaders.
Former colleague and Abba's successor to the chair at the Western Cape Traders Association ( WCTA), Sharief Hassan, adds that Abba had always been a principled activist.
Abba was part of the WCTA delegation led by Hassan to Lusaka in 1989, where they met leading ANC activists like Thabo Mbeki, Alfred Nzo, Steve Tshwete and Joe Slovo. As founder member and chairperson of WCTA in 1977, he pioneered and championed several campaigns to support black businesses disadvantaged by apartheid.
One campaign is the support of the WCTA of the workers of the Food and Canning Workers' Union in their dispute with Fatti's & Moni's, in 1979.
The campaign led to the reinstatement of the workers. Dawood Esack, a community leader in Kensington, says a similar successful campaign for workers was won against Silverleaf Bakery.
Activist Shirley Gunn refers to Abba as “the kindest man ever”.
She records in her book Voices from the Underground, published in 2019, that in 1982, the workers of Cape Underwear were generously supported by donations from members of the WCTA under Abba's leadership.
Aneez Salie, Independent Newspaper Group Editor, activist and journalist at the time, narrates in the same book, how apartheid at Cape Herald, then owned by the Argus Group, was opposed through a boycott and a workers' strike at the newspaper.
However, Salie told Muslim Views recently that in order to ensure the effectiveness of their campaign, they “deployed” Abba in 1981 as WCTA leader to meet with the general manager of the company in the Western Cape.
In this meeting, says Salie, the media executive was subjected by Abba to such blistering censure that he was left at the end of the encounter “with his tie in his mouth”.
The ANC newsletter, Sechaba, of January 1981, corroborates the meeting and mentions Abba by name.
When veteran activist Oscar Mpetha was released from prison (and simultaneously discharged from hospital) in 1989, at the age of 80, he specifically asked Abba to push him by wheelchair to his freedom.
When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, he preferred not to be escorted by a fleet of luxury vehicles but by more modest models.
Abba was asked to arrange this and approached the late Hamza Esack for a fleet of Toyotas.
Despite the absence of a formally documented narrative of Abba's life, there are abundant eminent voices and records that attest to his valued contribution as a dedicated advocate for social justice.