Tribute by the Minister Of Defence, Nosiviwe Mapisa Nqakula at the funeral of Mme Agnes Msimang, veteran of the struggle to liberate South Africa from Oppression and Exploitation
Programme Director, allow me to greet all members of the Msimang Family, Leaders of the African National Congress throughout its various structures, and leaders of other political formations and the broad civil movement in South Africa, as well as all the mourners who have come out to bid farewell to Mme Agnes Msimang, one of the most dedicated cadres in the struggle to liberate the Motherland.
Mme Msimang is the latest in a long list of former cadres and leaders of the African National Congress, who have been struck down by death since the democratic breakthrough in South Africa, which ushered in freedom to our beloved country. But, all of those cadres and leaders, continue to live in our collective memory, because of the lessons they bequeathed to us.
Were it not because of those lessons, it would have been extremely difficult to internalise the fact that, one of the most energetic human beings I have ever been privileged to rub shoulders with, is now a motionless figure that reposes silently in a coffin en route to her eternal resting place.
However, Mme Msimang, like the other heroes of our struggle for liberation, taught us the importance of dedication and commitment to the cause of the people. What that meant during the struggle was to throw your entire life, prepared to die even, to contribute to the liberation of the Motherland. That was a deep commitment that cadres like Mme Msimang would never betray.
Those heroes of our struggle also knew that liberation itself would go through various episodes. Firstly, liberation, having been attained, would have to be defended. The lesson from revolutionaries like Mme Msimang was that the responsibility of the defence of our freedom would fall on the shoulders of only committed cadres and leaders.
Having been defended, the liberation of the people would still have to be consolidated. The building blocks of that consolidation, Mme Msimang always told us, were honesty to and continuous interaction with the masses of our country. Again, only committed and honest cadres would be expected to maintain a never-ending link with the people based honesty and loyalty to their cause. Commitment that would result in the delivery of good, regular services to the people.
Among other things, honesty together with loyalty to the people’s cause, would require upstanding cadres who would sacrifice all on behalf of the people and never betray the cause by stealing from the public purse. Those who have stolen the people’s money, have become rich and have been able to acquire many things that have defined for themselves of easy living.
However, they have become poor in spirit and demeanour and have been defined outside of human goodness. We are seeing at this stage processes that indicate that the chickens have come home to roost. The corrupt are being exposed and soon crime fighters will knock on their doors.
What cadres and leaders like Mme Agnes also taught us was what it meant to be a revolutionary. Our hearts are heavy while the hearts of the Msimang Family are bleeding. All of us though, should be happy that she was a dedicated, professional revolutionary, with high moral scruples and never deviated from the path of faithful service to her people. She never betrayed the cause.
Our government, recognising her undying commitment to the struggle for our liberation, awarded her the National Order of Luthuli in Silver in 2014. Our President, commenting after her passing away, said she was a true servant of the people. He added: “She was a committed and loyal member of the ANC and was a surrogate mother to many activists both inside the country and in exile during apartheid.”
We knew that Mme Msimang was ill for some time and the ANC officials asked her to leave work and look after herself at home. She refused and continued to occupy her post at Albert Luthuli House. She defied the ills that were assailing her body and relied on her spirit of no-surrender, which had been honed over many years in the struggle for our freedom.
We thought she would do the same with death and not surrender. Her courage raised her, in our eyes, to the high level of immortality. We knew she was mortal and, in the broader scheme of life’s firmament, we knew she was but a puny human being. However, we believed in her legendary no-surrender makeup.
I saw Mme Msimang for the first time after arriving in Lusaka to join the ranks of the ANC in exile. She was mostly in the company of Mme Doreen Motshabi. Whenever some women from South Africa arrived in Lusaka, the two women, working together with their colleagues in the Women’s Section of the ANC, would find a way of meeting the visitors and bring them some parcels of items of clothing, to distribute to needy children inside South Africa.
Even after the democratic breakthrough, Mme Agnes continued to search for extremely needy people in South Africa to help alleviate their situation. She was among the first to go to bereaved families in the larger ANC family for solidarity and the mobilisation of resources for burials.
Mme Msimang was a stickler for discipline. All the members of the ANC’s personnel at Albert Luthuli House were careful to stick within the framework of the party’s disciplinary measures so as not to annoy her. Those who were guilty of any violation became victims of her sharp rebuke. She always insisted on proper clothing for work purposes. Many of the young girls working at Luthuli or those who were visiting faced her wrath when they were not properly clad.
Those of us who report to Luthuli House now and again, are already feeling Mme Msimang’s absence. We ask the question: Where shall we find another human mirror for us to check whether we continue to move on the straight and narrow as we discharge the functions that have been assigned to us by our people? We also ask the question whether the clothes we are wearing were bought using what truly belongs to us, through our own sweat, or were acquired by means of the resources we stole from our people.
The mirror, presented by Mme Msimang, was our measure of whether we were equal to the call to service by our people, or we were simply pretenders with no clue of the demands for dedication, loyalty and honesty to the tasks we had been given either to serve the South African nation as a whole or the African National Congress as South Africa’s governing party. Those are the values that Mme Msimang and the other revolutionaries who walked with her during the struggle for our freedom insisted on.
Those of us who are still alive should redefine ourselves in terms of the standards set by our heroes and heroines like Mme Msimang. Let us define and leave for our own children and their children a legacy that will continue to take forward the vehicle of democracy, freedom, security, peace and development for our people, enshrined in the doctrine of the African National Congress, the organisation that Mme Agnes Msimang loved with all her heart until she died. Mme Msimang is obviously the calibre of cadre that Pixley ka Isaka Seme thought about when he penned his The Regeneration of Africa thesis in April 1906 where, among other things, he wrote the following:
“Agencies of a social, economic and religious advance tell of a new spirit which, acting as a leavening ferment, shall raise the anxious and aspiring mass to the level of their ancient glory. The ancestral greatness, the unimpaired genius, and the recuperative power of the race, its irrepressibility, which assures its permanence, constitute the African’s greatest source of inspiration…
“Civilisation resembles an organic being in its development – it is born, it perishes, and it can propagate itself. More particularly, it resembles a plant, it takes root in the teeming earth, and when the seeds fall in other soils new varieties sprout up…”
We hope we shall be part of the new varieties that will sprout up in your character and image. Our sad farewell to you today Mme is mitigated by the story of your life of selflessness, dedication, commitment and loyalty to our people, which was highly inspirational to us. We hope we shall be able to rise to your level as we hate injustice. We hope we shall respect the honour we were accorded to serve our people and we hope we shall become, in your name, dedicated adherents to the highest norms of discipline.
We know today’s circumstances have changed from the time of our struggle against racial oppression and exploitation. The apartheid monster has been defeated. However, there are other enemies we have to fight. Some of them, like poverty, homelessness and unemployment, are a throwback to the machinations of the racial policies of the racist regime of the National Party.
There are some among us who have exploited our democratic space to create new enemies for us like rampant crime that has produced possibilities for unbridled corruption. We need, in your honour, Mme Aggie, to not only expose those among us who are evil, but take serious umbrage against those who do bad things.
Farewell trusted servant of our people.
