Alex loses illustrious activist
ALEXANDRA - An illustrious community activist and member of the South Africa Communist Party has been lost to Alex.
Gab as he was affectionately known, was a youth leader of the anti apartheid resistance movement.
“Its worthy recounting the selfless nature of this compatriot whose death leaves a void which will be difficult to fill,” said Oupa Fokazi, a friend of Gab from the 80s.
Recounting the past, Fokazi said he first met Gab at high school in the 80s when he was an active leader of the Student Christian Movement together with the late Martin Manzi, who later became a ward councillor. “We recruited him into the Congress of South African Students where he was elected to the sub-branch executive at Realogile Secondary School and became deputy secretary of the Students Representative Council,” said Fokazi.
“With him we got stronger and improved our involvement in the struggle for better education and rights for black students and also teachers. Subsequently, he became involved in the leadership of the local branch of the ANC Youth League.”
Fokazi added that because of insecurity at the time, Gab had to disguise his political activities by piggybacking on other social initiatives for the Alex community. “This included working with luminaries such as Linda Twala distributing food parcels and other material items to the elderly and homeless.
“Despite the disguise, his social and political activism still got him entangled in regular skirmishes with the apartheid regime. In one instance, he survived seven gun shots wounds during a night vigil for one comrade,” Fokazi added.
In the new dispensation he continued working on education matters and was the chairperson of Learner Education and Training Unit, an initiative of education stakeholders which sought to improve the education environment in Alexandra. Also, he was chairperson of the Alexandra Child Care and Support Centre for orphaned and vulnerable children. “Gab, was selfless, forthright and harboured no grudges,” Fokazi stressed.
He died at home of natural causes and was known to suffer from asthma. He is survived by his wife, Joyce who is a ward councillor in Alex, and five children, a girl and four boys.
