Kathrada and Mandela cut from the same cloth

As struggle icon Ahmed Kathrada was on Wednesday laid to rest at Johannesburg’s Westpark Cemetery, under the clear skies of a typical Highveld day, some unspoken words resonated unheard among the eulogies.

“We are a country that has been blessed by many great and remarkable men and women, all of whom played a critical part in this grand struggle for freedom and dignity. We have been blessed by the contributions of many different movements and formations, both inside and outside the country, each making an indelible imprint on our history.

“We have been blessed by a struggle that actively involved the masses of the people in their own liberation.”

While these thoughts could well have been applied to the deep feeling of patriotism and justice Kathrada espoused, sadly they were delivered at the funeral of a man he deeply admired and counted as a close friend, Nelson Mandela. And it is one of those sad ironies that it was Kathrada who spoke them in the Eastern Cape village of Qunu in December 2013.

Both Kathrada and Mandela, or “Madala” as Kathrada referred to him, and the serried ranks of dignitaries – President Jacob Zuma conspicuously not among them – and citizens who had come to pay their last respects, had proved by inspired example to be men of the people.

“Poverty, ill-health and hunger still stalk our land. Greed and avarice show their ugly faces. Xenophobia and intolerance play their mischief in our beautiful land,” Kathrada had continued in Qunu.

As was his constant concern, it was ordinary South Africans who were paramount in Kathrada’s thinking and we can do no better than echo his own words at Madiba’s funeral: “You symbolise today, and always will, qualities of collective leadership, reconciliation, unity and forgiveness. You strove daily to build a united, nonracial, nonsexist and democratic South Africa.”

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