Struggle hero Walter Sisulu has gone
May 06, 2003 Edition -1
Arguably more than any other family in South Africa, the Sisulus' contribution to the liberation struggle and the birth of the new nation is outstanding.
And the credit for this selfless input is Walter Sisulu, the man who recruited Nelson Mandela to the ANC.
For his undying love of freedom, Sisulu spent more than a quarter of a century on Robben Island. He gave his children, and perhaps more importantly his wife Albertina, to the struggle.
At the height of apartheid repression, Albertina played a pivotal role in the founding of the United Democratic Front.
While other children were in exile, Zwelakhe Sisulu was engaged in countering apartheid propaganda through the now defunct New Nation, a publication that was restricted several times. Zwelakhe himself was detained for almost two years without trial.
Sisulu inspired thousands of young people to challenge the might of the apartheid machinery. Together with his co-accused, including Mandela and Govan Mbeki, the Rivonia trialists were jailed as leaders of the anti-apartheid movement.
But who is Sisulu?
According to ANC documents, it is not widely known that Sisulu's mother Alice was a domestic worker and his father, Victor Dickenson, was a white civil servant.
Born on May 18 1912 at Engcobo in Transkei, of peasant origin, Sisulu's formal schooling ended at the age of 15 in Standard 4.
Then he became a mineworker in Johannesburg, working in arduous and dangerous conditions, each night sleeping on wooden boards alongside the cruelly exploited miners in the grim barracks in one of the Reef compounds.
His next job was in East London as a "kitchen boy". Then he went back to Johannesburg to work in a bakery for a miserly wage.
Having picked up some information about trade unions, he led the workers on a strike for higher wages. The strike was defeated and he was sacked.
He went through a succession of factory jobs and clashed repeatedly with white bosses. For relief, he delved into Xhosa history and wrote articles about national heroes for the African press.
As he went from job to job, he studied for his senior school standard.
Sisulu joined the ANC in 1940, the same year that A B Xuma - also from Engcobo - assumed the post of president-general of the ANC. In 1944, together with Oliver Tambo, Mandela, Anton Lembede and others, he founded the ANC Youth League and became its first national secretary.
In 1949 Sisulu was elected the first full-time secretary-
general of the ANC. When he took on the complex job, he brought natural gifts, a deep political seriousness from a life of struggle as a youth, a lack of concern with the status symbols of educational and social success - for he had none, and learnt that other qualities were more important - and a steel nerve for crisis situations.
As the ANC grew after the great African miners' strike of 1946, Sisulu grew too.
His political experience in the struggle against white minority dictatorship taught him that simple nationalist slogans were inadequate; that behind the great repressive state in South Africa was a ruling class based on complex forms of class and colour exploitation, each supplementing the other to oppress the African as a worker, peasant or human being.
Sisulu began to study and write, to plan mass campaigns and to formulate strategies. He was a leader of the Defiance Campaign in 1952 and together with Nanabhai (Nana Sita), president of the Transvaal Indian Congress, led the first batch of African, coloured and Indians in breaking the law by entering the Boksburg location without a permit.
Word seemed to have reached the inmates of "Blue Sky" prison in Boksburg about the Defiance Campaign, so that when they arrived at the prison, the inmates gave the congress volunteers a rousing reception. They sang freedom songs until the early hours of the morning.
The following day a furious superintendent arrived to give the prisoners a dressing-down for upsetting his prison. Sisulu fearlessly stepped forward and announced that he was the leader of the resisters. The superintendent ordered him removed and put into solitary confinement for three weeks.
In 1953 Sisulu was the guest of the World Federation of Democratic Youth to its third World Youth Festival in Bucharest, Romania.
Included in the delegation of South Africans were several who left illegally, among them Duma Nokwe, Alfred Hutchinson, Henry "Squire" Makgothi and Paul Joseph.
Sisulu was most impressed with what he saw in the socialist countries, the highlight of which was his visit to the Soviet Union.
Being of working-class origin and a member of the oppressed masses, the Soviet visit was an unforgettable experience.
Here he was meeting people of different nationalities who were once oppressed by tsarist rule. He was invited to speak on Radio Moscow.
In the meantime, at a rally in Johannesburg to mark the 36th anniversary of the October Revolution, Ahmed Kathrada announced that Sisulu and his colleagues were in Moscow celebrating the November 7 anniversary.
The announcement caused a sensation to the packed Trades Hall and much annoyance to the Special Branch.
On his way back to South Africa, Sisulu stopped over in London, where he immediately set about meeting political leaders, both British and from different parts of Africa.
He addressed a rally on South Africa in the Holborn Town Hall.
On his return to South Africa he was enthusiastically received by a series of receptions and report-back meetings called by the South African Society for Peace and Friendship with the Soviet Union. Police raided these meetings and made arrests.
Later Sisulu and his colleagues recorded their impressions in a publication called South Africans in the Soviet Union, edited by Ruth First, of which thousands of copies found their way into the country.
The police made a point of confiscating and destroying this publication, as was shown when they went on an orgy, smashing the literature stall at the Congress of the People.
Sisulu was one of the accused in the treason trial in 1956. In 1960, during the state of emergency, he was detained without trial.
The next year he faced prosecution twice. Sisulu was arrested six times in 1962 and placed under 13-hour house arrest on October 26 and under 24-hour house arrest on April 3 1963.
Pending an appeal against a six-year sentence, Sisulu forfeited bail of R6 000 on April 19 1963, and went underground.
The next time the nation heard from him was when he spoke on our underground Radio Freedom on June 26 1963, assuring the people that Umkhonto weSizwe had decided to fight on an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" basis.
On 11 July 1963 Sisulu was arrested and detained under the 90-day law.
At the Rivonia trial, Sisulu was the main defence witness and was subjected to fierce attack from the prosecutor, Percy Yutar. Sisulu told him: "I wish you were an African. Then you would know ..."
An observer at the Rivonia trial characterised Sisulu's performance in the following words:
"Once Sisulu had taken the measure of the prosecution, it was as if he forgot he was in the witness box. It must have been 11 years since he had last appeared on a public platform, and now again he dominated the situation."
He was charged with sabotage and other offences in the Rivonia trial, and on June 14 1964 he was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island.
Sisulu was a man of tremendous integrity, which made his communication with people of different political views very easy.
He enjoyed a very high standing with people of all nationalities and ethnic groups, who not only loved him but sheltered and protected him from police persecution, at great risks to themselves.
The man's dignity, warmth and dedication made him one of the most esteemed leaders.
Sisulu's outstanding contribution is also due to the sacrifices of his wife Albertina - a brave, militant comrade who, throughout these difficult years, has acted like a rock of ages.
Albertina always stood by her husband, and he died in her arms. - Political Staff
