Struggle hero was truly a man among men
Bonisile Philemon Norushe is one of the few comrades who could claim the South African struggle was his ultimate life mission.
The Qoboqobo (Keiskammahoek)-born ANC stalwart, who died a week ago at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in Mdantsane at the age of 72, was a veteran unionist who cut his political teeth in 1973, when he joined the side of the workers who were fighting for better wages and working conditions in a textile factory in East London.
From there onwards he was never to look back and to abandon the struggle to end economic exploitation, political domination and social degradation.
During the struggle, he dealt with many serious calamities and tragedies.
He saw his comrades in agony after suffering pains from a failed food poisoning attempt by security police during one of his detention spells.
He was the recipient of the news of the drowning of his recruits at the Caledon River in the 1980s, who were fleeing South Africa for exile life through the Kingdom of Lesotho.
He also had the difficult task of consoling comrades who lost their wives and relatives while they were in detention.
All those experiences never broke his resolve to fight for freedom both at home and abroad.
Though Norushe had nerves of steel when it came to withstanding and absorbing apartheid atrocities, he was flabbergasted by the tragic drowning of one of the Fazzie brothers, Sicelo, and Mzwanele, the other brother, dying during the SADF cross-border raid in Maseru in 1982.
Although these events happened kilometres away from him, he took those losses as if there was something he could have done personally to avoid them.
This is what those who work with him admired and revered him for.
Norushe was still an active member of the ANC, MKMVA and the Veteran’s Association.
His death is seen as a big loss to the struggle community throughout the country.
His funeral service is expected to attract huge numbers of mourners from all over South Africa, who will include top government officials and national leaders of the ANC and other liberation organisations at his farm in Keiskammahoek, on February 16.
Mandla Gxanyana, the general secretary of the African Food and Canning Workers Union (AFCWU) in the 1980s, says he met Norushe in 1978.
The meeting was at the behest of Oscar Mpeta.
“When I first saw him I never thought he was going to be a suitable unionist, given the fact that he was looking too normal and neatly dressed in suits and safaris.
“I cannot believe how wrong I was.
“Little did I know that the man could drop his secured job as a clerk at Langebergh Kopp for the rough and tumble life of uncertainty of unionism,” Mandla said.
Phil left his job and rose to the highest level of unionism.
Mandla speaks glowingly about his hero, he counts especially his time as Sactu international representative when he travelled the capitals of both the Eastern and Western blocs at the height of the Cold War, presenting the plight of South Africa’s oppressed and exploited workers.
As the struggle was being intensified in the late 70s and early 80s, Norushe was one of the seriously marked activists by both the South African and Ciskei security police.
He was suspected of recruiting young people into leaving the country to join the ANC to undergo military training in neighbouring countries.
On numerous occasions he was detained without trial and placed in solitary confinement for long periods of time.
The fact that he worked closely with radical unionists such as Mpeta, Thozamile Gqwetha, Sisa Njikelana and others did not endear himself to the powers that be, especially the abrasive and unpredictable Ciskei strongman, Charles Sebe, the tinpot dictator of the then nominal independent state Ciskei.
Norushe knew that being knowledgeable as a freedom fighter was crucial.
Although he left South Africa after having scaled the highest heights of South Africa’s unionism, he availed himself to the schools advance trade union training in such places as Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and others, when an opportunity was presented to him by Sactu, when he finally fled his country of birth for exile in 1984.
Khaya Myoli, an ANC pointman who coordinated ANC activities from Lesotho in the early 80s, described Norushe as a “brave warrior”.
Myoli reminisces: “The one critical issue about Norushe is that he had unparalleled consistency of pursuing the struggle in difficult times.”
He said his bravery to undertake dangerous and specific actions and missions, sometimes to his own detriment, was mind-blowing.
“I admired his stubborn resolve to forge ahead with all manner of serious activities despite being harassed and under severe surveillance by security police.”
Thokozani, Norushe’s eldest child, describes her father as having been “both father and mother to us”.
“He believed that women could play a leading role in politics because of their tenacity and natural strength.”
Thokozani says her father did not just pay lip service to gender equity – “my father talked, lived, and breathed all the values and the historical mission of liberating all South Africans”.
Norushe will be dearly missed by his wife Noziqhamo, children, relatives and friends.
He was detained without trial and placed in solitary confinement a number of times