Programme Director;
The Liphaphang family;
ANCYL President, Cde Julius Malema and the entire leadership of the ANCYL present here;
Provincial Secretary of the ANC in the Free State, Cde Sbongile Besane and the ANC leadership at large;
Leadership of the Alliance;
The Executive Mayor of Matjhabeng, Cde Sebenzile Ngangelizwe
Members of Parliament and the Legislature present today;
Councilors;
Comrades and Friends;
Once again in the hype of the national democratic revolution; the national democratic society led by the national democratic movement, is called upon to lower its banners to pay homage and last respect to a cadre, comrade, a friend, a brother, a father and a husband!
As we pay tribute to Cde Tshiliso Liphaphang in recognition of his immense sacrifice and contribution, we are reminded by his impeccable life story that he remains one of the finest and most seasoned cadres of our movement, the glorious African National Congress. A disciplined and dedicated revolutionary, an intelligentsia of note, an astute administrator of the 21st Century and an eloquent communicator in the age of globalised information and communications technology.
Till his last breath, Cde Tshiliso remained an African democrat; cognizant of his revolutionary duty as a cadre of the working class baptized in the revolutionary fires of our struggle for national liberation and social emancipation. A great youth leader of his generation and a tireless organizer till the end, bred among the brave young lions! Equal to the challenges of his time, he occupied the centre stage of our struggle in the late eighties and early nineties in response to the call by our movement to, ‘render the country ungovernable and make apartheid structures unworkable!’
His unwavering commitment to a free and just Education system for all propelled him to become a ‘torch bearer’ of the struggle for Peoples’ Education for Peoples’ Power.He became a front runner in the struggle for a free education. It is proceeds of his undying, combatant spirit that ushered a free, single, non-racial, non-sexist, united and democratic education system in South Africa.
Today, our people are living in a democratic society with a government that has declared “no fee school system” that saw 40% of schools benefiting. Comrades and compatriots we owe this to the memory of comrades like Tsiliso “Mafotha” Liphaphang, and his ilk!
In Comdrade Tsiliso, our movement has truly lost one of the finest and formidable cadres of our time, a brilliant activist that fought side by side with peoples of the world against a global onslaught from the enemies of democracy. As we bid farewell to this gallant activist and internationalist, it is befitting to join the masses of our people across the globe in their call for peace, solidarity and brotherhood among the progressive forces of the world.
We believe that his selfless contribution to the struggle for liberation should be recorded and shared with many generations to come.He has made his mark. Many young people in this country will tap from his fountain of knowledge and the experience he is living behind; because our struggle is about memory and against forgetting.
As we hasten to pick up the fallen spear we dare not to forget that we do so at a time when our revolution and its memory are on trial. A time when the revolution is on tribunal for failing to forget and abandon memories of pains, its joy, its celebrations, its commemorations, its songs, its poems, its slogans and its chanting! We bid farewell to comrade Tsiliso at a time when the forces of darkness and of doom are holding us at ransom for our collective refusal to succumb to their appetite of scavenging on the memory our revolution and the dignity of our people.
Today on this seventeenth year of democracy and on Freedom Day to be exact, our country and nation pays tribute to a gallant fighter of his age and a stalwart in the struggle against apartheid colonialism.We salute a freedom fighter, and a selfless cadre of our movement and that we lay to rest.
We do so just twenty one days after we commemorated the spirit of yet another gallant fighter of our struggle on the sixth April. At the tender age, our nation and people were robbed of its future leader, Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu, who was thrown into the apartheid gallows and mercilessly hanged by a white man’s killer machine.
At the same time, it was in April, shortly after he just set foot on the South African soil, from exile, that Oliver Reginald Tambo, the father of our movement, the ANC, passed away just a year and few months before the 1994 democratic elections.
Lest we forget that in this same month, comrade Chris Hani, the finest son of the soil, was brutally attacked by two white men and murdered him on the doorstep of his home in Boksburg. It was also on this month of April that South Africa was robbed of the young combatant Thamsanqa “Pom” Rhubusana who mysteriously died at Turfloop campus, University of Limpopo. A former National President of COSAS, an organization that developed and groomed comrade Tsiliso and many more.
It should be emphasized that, April is not only the Month we celebrate the 1994 democratic breakthrough and Freedom, but it also symbolizes death; it symbolizes loss; it symbolizes bloodshed; it symbolizes the sound of post; and it symbolizes dust to dust!
We cannot forget the immense sacrifices of these gallant fighters in our struggle for liberation and in our journey towards a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, and prosperous South Africa.It is, therefore, befitting to reflect on their shared history and selfless contributions into the freedom and democracy we enjoy today.
Thus in this epoch of our struggle, it is also befitting to pay homage and fitting tribute to all our fallen martyrs and reaffirm that their blood did not spill in vain for what they fought for has not been forsaken. The spear they carried with selfless commitment has not been dropped. The generation of today has risen to the occasion and they can rest assured the struggle continues!
Their movement in black, green and gold, the glorious ANC, is today charged with a responsibility to “build more united, non-racial, integrated communities and sustainable rural communities.It does so, inspired by their spirit together with that of comrade Tsiliso and unshaken in its belief that what they fought for is now action in motion.
The government, they fearlessly fought for, is “improving services for all our people and seized with a task to broaden access for all”.
The democratic state, they fought for, is working with all spheres of government and people to build more effective, accountable and clean local government.We say to them together with the developmental state; we will continue to strengthen community participation in all levels of our government.
The Peoples’ Movement, however, is convinced that more needs to be done and that there is more that we need to do.
Comrades, we are gathered here not only to mourn but to celebrate the life of comrade Tsiliso and we say to him that because of your contribution and the contribution of many other combatants, today the majority of South Africans, led by the African National Congress, are celebrating 17 years of the democratic rule in the country of their birth. They are converging in different villages and townships to mark the 27 April 1994 democratic victory, the Freedom Day.
At the same time, our people in different styles will take the opportunity provided by the Freedom Day to celebrate together with their movement, the ANC, the achievements of our democratic government since the 1994 democratic breakthrough.
Comrade Tsiliso, your tremendous contribution has not gone unnoticed. You served unselfishly in-and-out of our movement in different capacities, in community organizations in general and the ANC in particular.
To the movement, your father will continue to be counted among the foremost revolutionaries of our time.He has shown us, as he was not occupying any senior position in the movement, that these positions are not ours, you have shown us this courage till the end, even in your last days on earth.
To the family of Liphaphang and the next of kin; we want to thank you for the son you’ve borrowed us and the selfless sacrifices he has made for mankind and his people.It is through your nurturing and upbringing that he has grown to become the national assets we inherited.We will always remember that the family remains the nucleus of our society!
To the wife, Mmathabiso, and the children, Sechaba, Tsholofelo and Lesedi, we say, we know that yours was a father and husband shared with many for he was a leader of the community and a father for all his people.
We will take his spear and go forward ever and backward never with full of zeal, zing and zest, showing to the whole world that, through the spirit of Tsiliso, on the 18th May 2011, our people will renew the mandate of the African National Congress, their party to,
‘Build a better life for all’
This time around, our people and their social movements will say to the ANC: “Let’s build better communities together”
And we can!
