O n Wednesday 19 April death robbed our country and people of a towering woman leader and patriot, Ma Ellen Motlalepule Khuzwayo. Born in 1914, she passed away a mere two months away from celebrating her 92nd birthday.
We take this opportunity once more to convey our condolences to the family of the late Ma Khuzwayo, with whom we mourn the departure of a true giant in the continuing struggle to achieve the goal of a better life for our people, to which Ellen Khuzwayo dedicated her life.
Purely coincidentally, on 20 April, the day after she passed away, we conferred the Order of Luthuli, posthumously, on five patriots who were murdered by agents of the apartheid regime as it fought to prolong its tyranny during its latter years of existence. These are Joe Gqabi, Ruth First, Fort Calata, Sicelo Mhlauli and Sparrow Mkhonto.
Though she might never have met anyone of these patriots, all of them were nevertheless her comrades-in-arms, and belonged to the same mass army of liberation that was and is committed to sacrifice everything to serve the people of South Africa. It was therefore right and proper that the solemn gathering at the Union Buildings, convened for the conferment of the Order of Luthuli and other National Orders, should stand in silence to honour Ellen Khuzwayo, as it did. She too had been honoured with her National Order in 1999.
I mention her together with some of those awarded the Order of Luthuli on 20 April because their lives, both those who died for our freedom and those who lived on to celebrate the fruits of their struggle, must continue to inspire us as we strive to discharge our responsibilities as patriots and members of the ANC.
In this regard, Ellen Khuzwayo's life constitutes a virtual directive to all these liberation fighters, which they must study and understand in order to appreciate the obligation that falls on the shoulders of those who voluntarily define themselves as patriots and members of the ANC.
Born in 1914 in Lesotho she grew up on her grandfather's farm in Thaba Nchu, which she inherited in 1930. She lost this farm when it was declared a 'white area', thus experiencing first hand the humiliation, pain and suffering of millions of our people who were uprooted from their ancestral lands resulting in 87% of South African land being occupied by whites.
She was part of those young activists of our movement who formed the ANC Youth League, understanding very well the need to mobilise young people to participate actively in the liberation of our country as an inalienable and disciplined part of the struggles waged by the ANC.
After graduating as a teacher in 1936, Ellen Khuzwayo dedicated her life to the task to impart knowledge to her fellow black people, especially the youth, including doing volunteer work among them. Like many who understood teaching not merely as a prestigious career that distinguished them from their poor and disempowered compatriots, she saw this profession as a platform through which the oppressed could extricate themselves from their degrading and debilitating conditions. She regarded education as a weapon which should be used to fight for freedom and use it further to defeat poverty and underdevelopment.
Accordingly, when the apartheid regime introduced Bantu Education in 1953 she knew that this was an attempt to deny blacks the many opportunities presented by access to proper education. Clearly, she was not prepared to participate in the further mental enslavement of her people. She resigned her teaching post.
Being the servant of the people that she was throughout her life, Ma-Khuzwayo, as she was affectionately called, sought other ways of making her contribution to help the poor overcome their many and varied challenges.
She returned to school at the age of 39 and completed a training programme and a degree in Social Work. She redirected her exceptional energies to address the challenges occasioned by social exclusion, social and cultural alienation, absence of social cohesion and the general outcomes of a degrading life imposed on the people by oppression and extreme exploitation.
She did this work through the Johannesburg City Council, the South African Association of Youth Clubs and the YWCA. Imbued by the age-old traditions of our people of Letsema and Vuk'uzenzele, Ma-Khuzwayo worked with local women through self-help programmes like sewing projects.
Ellen Khuzwayo did all these and many other things because she sought to nurture our people in accordance with the well-known saying "don't give me fish, but teach me how to fish!"
As we honour our great heroine, Ellen Khuzwayo, this is the spirit that we should bring back into our work as the ANC and infuse this into all spheres of our democratic government, so that each one of us understands that it is better and more sustainable to help all our people to acquire the necessary skills, education, expertise, information and other resources for their own individual as well as national development.
During the Soweto centenary celebrations in 2004, Ellen Khuzwayo was honoured with the prestigious Soweto 100 Milestone Award in recognition of her role in the fight against apartheid. This was truly fitting because in addition to the work I have already briefly mentioned, when the youth of Soweto defied the might of the apartheid police and army demanding an end to Bantu Education, together with other leaders, Ellen Khuzwayo came to the fore to continue her struggle against apartheid, this time occupying the trenches with young people many of whom were not even born when she herself refused to teach the same Bantu Education in 1953.
Ma-Khuzwayo could not sit idly by when young people were being killed in their hundreds. This is because the youth, the future of our nation, had always been close to the heart of this titanic heroine of our people.
Many years after the historic Soweto Uprising, whose 30th anniversary we commemorate this year, she told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in Soweto that: "Sometime I can forgive the National Party for what they did to us as adults, but I can never forgive what they did to our children."
"They never saw our children as children because their skin was different from their own They turned our children into animals and I feel I will go to my grave with this pain in my heart."
This is the pain of many mothers who brought-up, nurtured and educated their children on meagre resources so that their tomorrow would be better than their yesterday. And so when these mothers, as represented by Ma-Khuzwayo, saw their humble efforts destroyed by inferior education and when these young people protested, their lives easily taken out like the swatting of flies, their pain became truly unbearable.
Yet, even carrying this heavy pain, Ellen Khuzwayo was a cadre of the ANC. Accordingly, when her organisation decided that for South Africa and South Africans to move forward towards a better future, we needed to forgive and embark on a reconciliation process, she agreed with the need to work together for the greater good while not forgetting the evil that was done to the majority of our people.
However, it was not only to the youth that Ma-Khuzwayo dedicated her life. It was to all our people whose lives were defined by poverty, marginalisation, exploitation and disempowerment.
Hence, through her participation in the Soweto Committee of Ten, she was at the centre of the formation of civic organisations that were to be the bedrock of community resistance to apartheid in the 1980s. Even after her detention at the Johannesburg Fort for five months, unbowed, she came back to continue the struggle for freedom for her people.
Because Ma-Khuzwayo was a woman of the people, she observed how the poor were being ripped off and exploited through high prices for essential goods. This was particularly so with black people who had little access to information about goods that they bought. She therefore participated in the formation of the Black Consumers' Union to focus of this matter which was driving many poor people deeper into poverty.
Again, because of the apartheid policy to exclude blacks from economic activity except as consumers, Ellen Khuzwayo was instrumental in the formation of the black business organisation FABCOS.
She wrote the books, Call me Woman, Sit and Listen and Stories from South Africa, because she knew that we ourselves have an obligation to communicate our experiences and relate our histories. Through these books she tells us about herself as well as communicates a message that black people of this country must write books for the next generations to get first-hand information from those who occupied the forward trenches in the fight for freedom.
It was fitting that she had the possibility to serve as an ANC Member of Parliament in our first democratic parliament, to begin the process of building the new South Africa of which she had dreamt from her youth.
Through the many engagements we have mentioned and many others, Ma-Khuzwayo exemplified a particular type of an ANC activist. This is not an activist who becomes active only because there are elections to be fought. This is a cadre who connects the everyday challenges of the people to the bigger agenda of transformation.
This is an ANC cadre who works with communities to attend to their problems and not use our braches for personal advancement. This is an ANC cadre who would be defined as a community worker.
These are cadres who would not want to see young people idle, and would accordingly find ways of engaging these youth to participate in sport, in further education and doing work in the community.
These are cadres who would respond to the plight of the poor consumers as Ma-Khuzwayo did; cadres who, for instance, would look positively at the problems faced by hawkers and without exploiting the challenges faced by these people for personal interest, constructively engage their comrades in the municipalities so that together they can attend to these problems.
I am referring to the ANC cadre who would organise extra lessons for learners struggling with their school work and organise professionals to offer their time to help these learners.
Today we honour Ellen Khuzwayo because she left us a rich legacy from which to draw inspiration. This rich legacy of dedication and commitment to serve our people must impel us selflessly to work further to strengthen our organisation and focus its activities on the development of our country and the upliftment of the masses of our people.
As a cadre of the movement, a fighter for gender equality, an activist against the system of apartheid, and the emancipation of our people from poverty, Ellen Khuzwayo was an embodiment of the humane values that have always inspired and must continue to inspire all members and supporters of our movement.
She did not strive for fame and riches, nor was she intimidated by the scope of the challenges she chose to confront in her quest for the transformation of society. Her status as a woman in a society based on patriarchal domination only served to intensify her desire to secure the liberation of women.
She endured hardships along with the people, faced the same risks they faced, led from the front and injected an untiring, self-disregarding spirit on all fronts of the struggle. Her devotion to the goals of the ANC was never based on any consideration other than to realise the objectives of her organisation. Her love for the movement and everything it stood for took precedence over any other consideration.
Today, we need to ask ourselves whether we, cadres of our movement, are still upholding the unimpeachable track record of Ellen Khuzwayo and other past ANC cadres. We need to ask ourselves whether the seeds of self-sacrifice they planted into our organisation have not begun to fall on thorny, barren soil of self-interest!
Today, as our country continues to confront the challenges of corruption and lack of commitment and dedication to work among some public servants and public representatives, we need to draw important lessons from the life and times of this unassuming heroine, Ellen Khuzwayo.
As we dip our revolutionary banner in honour of a great fighter, a great soldier of our people, a heroine of our country we promise to uphold her principles, her commitment and her courage.
Ellen Khuzwayo was not compelled by the apartheid regime to make the supreme sacrifice made by her fellow Members of our National Orders, such as Joe Gqabi and others.
And yet the daily sacrifices she had to endure to sustain the light of hope even in the most difficult circumstances, makes her stand out as one of those sons and daughters of our people about whom we can say - their spirit will never die!
Hamba kahle Ma-Khuzwayo!
