ANC mourns ‘gentle giant’ Msimang
THE ANC is in mourning for one of its giants – Mendi Msimang, a man who proudly served on the ANC’s Integrity Commission in the twilight of his life and even through his 80s.
“No one will understand just how much of a loss Uncle Mendi’s passing is for the ANC and our country,” Minister Lindiwe Sisulu told mourners at a memorial service for the late ambassador at the Department of International Relations yesterday.
Msimang, who died on Monday after a lengthy illness, would have been 90 years old this Saturday, the day he will be buried in an official funeral.
“It is ironic that people who strode the globe like a colossus end up having family looking after them in the end,” Sisulu said.
“Uncle Mendi was an outstanding man, and few words can express what he was and has meant to us.”
Msimang died as he lived – the ultimate patriot, and in his last hours had wanted to hear Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika being sung.
Sisulu identified the great lessons from his life as being the fact that he served his party and country with loyalty, sincerity and utter humility.
“He detested arrogant leadership, laziness, gossip, factionalism, pomp, corruption and self-serving leaders. Let us take a leaf from his life, and learn the value of discipline,” Sisulu said.
The Reverend Frank Chikane, who also attended the memorial service, echoed those sentiments saying: “We relied on him in difficult times, as he told us what the ANC should be and how to do it.
“At the most difficult moment in the life of the ANC I went to his house and reflected with him. He was explicit about what had gone wrong and how it needed to be corrected,” Chikane said.
Msimang was named “Mendi” after the ship that brought African volunteers to fight in World War I, which tragically sank, with only its bell recovered.
Sisulu drew attention to the significance of a bell, saying it alerts people to danger, and that a bell is also our conscience.
“If the bell is our conscience, then the bell was Uncle Mendi. He held to his conscience and told us when things went wrong,” Sisulu said. “He was a man who did not need to shout to be heard.”
Msimang joined the ANC at the age of 16, and in the 1940s was one of the founding members of the ANC Youth League. He mobilised communities against forced removals, having himself experienced the viciousness of apartheid dispossession.
After the banning of the ANC in 1960, Msimang was sent to join Oliver Tambo to establish the ANC External Mission abroad, and in Tanzania he established the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in 1979 with other comrades. Msimang was described as a “torchbearer”.