The passing of Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang leaves a big gap in the hearts of us all she chanced upon in her march through the world. Over decades of struggle and after we attained liberation, Comrade Manto chose the uncharted territory and made a good fight of them all. For a cause Comrade Manto fought with every sinew in her body until the final days of her life. As a medical doctor Comrade Manto swore by the Hippocratic Oath. One of its dictums is to “respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know”. Yet it is she, the doctor, who was to feel sharply the arrows as this cardinal principle, of confidence between doctor and patient, was broken. When she was sacrificed on the altar of media freedom, it ceased to matter that she was human. Yet through this pain, Comrade Manto kept her head. She walked the world with the dignity of a true heroine whose work is done. She walked surefooted like a soldier whose history is etched in the annals of South Africa ’s history, whose past mapped Africa ’s future.
Comrade Manto came from the generation of pathfinders for whom the future was but a speck in the distant horizon. She risked paying the ultimate prize - death - when she joined the call merely for Africans to be treated like human beings, when we merely asked to be free. It is this commitment we salute today as our heroine sleeps, as the sun sets on so glorious an achievement, a life well-lived. We still wish secretly that Comrade Manto could have lived for a few more years, if only to help us complete the liberation of our people, the liberation of our women, the liberation of our children and to attain economic freedom. Her death must however egg all of us on to do more, to do more for the sake of our country, to do more for the sake of Africa . May her soul rest in peace.
Issued by: Department of Transport
18 December 2009
