A fearless leader who did not flinch in the face of adversity
“There are many lessons from our past. Now is the time for those that are progressive, politically and socially active in the non-governmental field – to come together to ensure that we:
- “Build consensus around a common platform of progressive politics,
- Not focus on ourselves, but rather on what we can do for the majority of our people and,
- Improve the standard of living of South Africans expeditiously and ethically.
“Let us open a new chapter on united, progressive, mass mobilisation and campaigning which builds national unity, social cohesion and a new optimism and determination to build a better South Africa.”
This was Pravin Gordhan’s final message delivered on his behalf to the NIC’s 130th commemoration held in Durban on September 8, 2024.
It captures the fighting spirit of a comrade whom the apartheid regime failed to break despite subjecting him to torture, imprisonment and unrelenting harassment.
Later on, he displayed the same fighting spirit when he led the charge against state capture and malfeasance. This time around, despite him and his family being subjected to intense vilification and harassment from his own comrades, he refused to be intimidated.
PG was a consummate activist, whose life revolved around building organisation, drawing more people regularly into activism across racial, class boundaries in the service of the liberation struggle.
He was a pharmacist professionally, who like other activists used the King Edward VIII hospital in the seventies as a base for their broad activism.
We met during the tail end of the 1970s after being introduced by Diliza Mji, an activist medical doctor. And Jabu Sithole a mathematician from Lamontville who connected me into these networks which constituted the crucible of political and organisational work.
Mobilising and organising, raising awareness and political consciousness for progressive action was what we did most of the time. We often commuted between Joburg and Durban to attend activist meetings in Gauteng.
PG was at the core of this work – highly energetic, intense in the quality of his engagement with people and issues, creative and connected, he was the live wire of a network that operated in the Durban functional area and elsewhere in the country.
The task of building structures and recruiting people who in no time became activists and later cadres of the revolutionary work under way in the country as whole was a full-time occupation.
He was involved in the underground formation of the civic and youth structures that became the backbone of the United Democratic Front in the early eighties.
The revival of the Natal Indian Congress benefited from his covert and overt work of the late seventies. Our orientation was decidedly non-racial - the UDF became the flag banner carrier of such orientation in the political work we did!
Together these progressive organisations became the core of the resistance movement against apartheid manoeuvres of the early eighties, successfully thwarting attempts to draw a wedge between communities on largely racial grounds, promoting a snowballing of resistance campaigns that in the late eighties reinvented the defiance campaigns against apartheid.
PG has been correctly characterised as a hard task master, with an enormous work ethic that drove much of the machinery building structures, winning over other activists and implementing creative political interventions like the million-signature campaign.
We supported the thrust of this work as against insurrection ideas that sought to rear their head in a difficult political environment. The later development of operation Vula demonstrated a coherence that emerged from initially conflicting stances in the revolutionary work under way.
Mass work, raising the level of consciousness especially amongst activists was a key programme he drove! The culmination of the defiance campaign was what effectively led the enemy to unbanning the political organisations, freeing political prisoners and the return of exiles.
PG continued to play a crucial role in the interim transitional and negotiating structures in the early 1990s. As a critical participant in the negotiating process, he was proud of the final adoption of the Constitution on May 8, 1996!
Soon after, the then minister of Constitutional Development and Local Government, Valli Moosa, asked PG to lead the development of the white paper on local government, which was adopted in 1998.
I later also joined PG in the executive as deputy minister of Rural Development and Land Affairs and later in 2013, when I became Minister of Cogta. PG was then Minister of Finance.
There is no doubt that PG left an indelible mark on the lives of countless activists including myself.
PG was no saint. There are many who disagreed or differed with him. His stubbornness when defending his principled positions were legendary.
However, none of these disagreements were driven by any personal agenda on his part. Rather, his deep commitment to creating a better life for all South Africans, more often than not informed his posture.
My last engagement with PG was at an event hosted by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation to recognise his immense contribution to our struggle for freedom and the embedding of democracy. It was a fitting tribute to one of the giants of our struggle who, through his fearless leadership and courage, inspired a new generation of activists to defend our hard-won freedom.
As we prepare our final salute to Comrade PG, we are comforted by the fact that many of his fellow activists like Mbuso Tshabalala, Shoots Naidoo, Baba Dlamini, Jabu Sithole, Phila Ndwandwe, Chris Ntuli, Ian Phillips, Charm Govender and many others await his arrival to take their activism to a higher level.
During this difficult time, on behalf of my family and I, we convey our condolences to the Gordhan family, friends and fellow activists, who were close to and worked with him in the trenches over time!
* Lechesa Tsenoli is the former Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly and an activist.
IOL Opinion