Matome Mafokwane remembers Ahmed Kathrada

After this morning’s announcement of the death of Ahmed Kathrada, the anti-apartheid struggle stalwart, who was found guilty of treason against the apartheid regime during the Rivonia Trial and served 26 years imprisonment, 18 of which were on Robben Island, local politicians have remembered the man who did so much for South Africa and its people.

On Tuesday morning, the Kathrada Foundation announced that the 87-year-old had passed away at the Donald Gordon Medical Centre in Parktown, following complications from surgery performed earlier this month to treat blood clotting on his brain.

Kathrada had a lifelong dedication to the politics of his country and was only 12 years old when he joined the Young Communist League in 1941, which was the start of his fight against the unjust system of apartheid. He joined other struggle heroes, such as Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, at the infamous Robben Island prison after being arrested on a South African Communist Party farm in Rivonia. He was tried and found guilty of treason by the apartheid regime in 1964.

In the later years of his life, Kathrada continued to be a leading voice in South African politics, even starting a foundation in his name that works in the name of nonracialism.

Read Ahmed Kathrada, one of the last three Rivonia Trialists, has died

Matome Mafokwane, who is the DA councillor for Ward 115 covering Zandspruit and the surrounding areas, took the opportunity to honour Kathrada’s memory.

“Ahmed Kathrada was a son of the soil,” Mafokwane said.

“[He was] one of our own. We’ve lost a great man, a man who sacrificed his own freedom so that you and I could be free today.

“He dedicated his entire life to fighting for equality [in South Africa]. This was a man who continued to raise his voice throughout the years, even after the end of apartheid, when he saw injustice and when things were not going right.

“This is how I will remember Uncle Kathy.”

Kathrada will be buried according to Muslim religious rites.

Edited by Beryl Knipe