Activist enters history books
WHAT started out in 2001 as a website to address the biased way in which South Africa’s past and heritage was being represented has become the largest online history archive on the continent.
And now the man behind South African History Online has himself entered the history books for his efforts.
Former Durban artist and activist Omar Badsha, who lives in Cape Town, was presented with one of the country highest honours, the Order of Ikhamanga in silver, from President Cyril Ramaphosa at the weekend.
“It is always a humbling experience to be given acknowledgement for that which has been done over years and that is collectively done. It shows the government recognises the work and effort done by the organisation to document the country’s history and liberation,” Badsha told POST.
“By recording our past we are able to do two things. One, teach people to avoid making the same mistakes of the past and two, we were able to educate the younger generation on the history of the country.”
With close to 40 000 documents, about 7 000 biographies and an archive containing tens of thousands of letters, statutes, photos and speeches, the site has registered more than 50 million page views since 2001. During 2016/17 alone, it was used by four-and-a-half million people globally, who viewed more than 10 million pages.
Badsha, one of the founding members and chairperson of the Cultural Workers Congress, an affiliate of the UDF, was head of the ANC’s Western Cape branch in 1990. Last year he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Stellenbosch.
Professor Farid Esack was bestowed with the Order of Luthuli in silver for his contribution to academic research and the fight against race, gender, class and religious oppression.
Esack, chairperson of Palestine solidarity organisation BDS South Africa, dedicated his award to his late mother and to brave Palestinians.
“Our generation who resisted and overcame apartheid with the support of activists throughout the world have no option but to live out our debt to the international working class and oppressed communities throughout the world, from Black Lives in the US, to Kashmir, to the Dalits in India, to the people of Cuba, the Christians in Muslim-majority countries, and the Palestinians living under the yoke of Israeli apartheid,” he said in a statement.