South Africa, world remember Govan Mbeki
Special to
Workers World
Durban, South Africa
Govan Mbeki died Aug. 30, one day before the opening of
the World Conference Against Racism. He was 91 years old.
Mbeki was memorialized by mass rallies across South Africa,
including at a huge march and rally by the Congress of South
African Trade Unions here in Durban. Mbeki devoted much of
his life to building the South African labor movement. His
funeral will be held Sept. 8 in Port Elizabeth.
Mbeki, known as Om Gov by the South African people, was
the father of South African President Thabo Mbeki. He was
also a great leader of the struggle against apartheid. He was
a founder of the African National Congress and a lifelong
member of the South African Communist Party.
Born in Transkei in 1910, he became active at the age of
15 with the Industrial and Commercial Union, South Africa's
first mass organization of Black workers. In his life he was
a peasant organizer, a writer and an editor of the liberation
newspapers New Age and Spark.
In 1962 Mbeki was declared a "banned person" by the
apartheid regime. Rather than remain cut off from the
struggle, he went underground and helped organize the armed
struggle against apartheid. He was arrested and sentenced to
life imprisonment along with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu,
Ahmed Kathrada, Dennis Goldberg and other ANC leaders. He was
imprisoned on Robben Island from 1961 until the mass struggle
won his release in 1987.
Upon leaving prison, he immediately returned to the work
of the ANC. He wrote several books, including "South Africa:
The Peasants Revolt." In 1980 the ANC conferred upon him the
time-honored title of Isithwalandwie.
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