SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY ONLINE - Key Persons
In 1984, Asvat found a new partner in his quest to provide medical services to the African community. Albertina Sisulu, the famed UDF leader and wife of imprisoned ANC hero Walter Sisulu, had just been released from prison when Asvat offered her a job working as a nurse in his Soweto clinic. The clinic was in the area Albertina was limited to work within due to her police banning. The two quickly developed a close partnership; Elinor Sisulu described them as ‘kindred spirits' who were both committed to overcoming the plight of homelessness and overthrowing the apartheid state (Sisulu, 2003). Understanding her situation as a political leader, Asvat allowed Sisulu the flexibility to continue her work with the UDF and visit Walter on Robben Island. Asvat also continued to give Albertina wages during periods when she was contained by the police. Albertina Sisulu later described their relationship as one between ‘a mother and a son' (Russel, 1997).
In the context of the mid-1980s, their partnership was remarkable. In 1984, the tenuous relationship between the UDF and Azapo broke down into warfare between cadres from the organizations. Over the next few years, hundreds (though some estimates are in the thousands) of Azapo and UDF youth were killed in political violence in the townships. Yet Asvat and Sisulu's political allegiances never interfered in their friendship or work. Sisulu's role in the UDF did not prevent Asvat from using the clinic as a meeting place for Azapo comrades and the two provided emergency treatment for injured fighters regardless of political association. Together, the Azapo Health Secretary and UDF co-president were a symbol of unification in an area torn apart by deadly internal violence. In 1988, their importance as community leaders was reflected when Black students graduating from Wits Medical School requested that both Asvat and Sisulu sign and confer their medical degrees for an alternative Black graduation ceremony.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Member of the SAHO Board
Medical Doctor, Cape Muslim leader & founder of the anti-apartheid movement, African People's Organisation and human rights campaigner.
Captain Lancelot Andrew Elsworth Ariba was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1891. He served in World War I with distinction and late studied architecture in Leeds and at the RA Schools 11 London. His ideals were based on the notion of a symbiotic relationship between the artist and the architect in solving the problems peculiar to modern architecture (W.H.K. ed 1933:162). He had worked with Sir Edwin Lutyens on the plans for New Delhi and was later transferred to the Cap'e Town office of Sir Herbert Baker. As an artist he often chose subjects that showed his interest in Cape-Dutch architecture. Like F.K. Kendall, his artistic reputation has not survived, and his chief legacies are architectural. They include the restoration of Vergelegen for Sir Lionel Phillips; his work at Noordhoek Manor with Baker for Sir Drummond Chaplin and the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Stations. From 192 he and his partner C.P. Walgate designed the Diocesai College Memorial Chapel, the buildings at Kirstenbosci Gardens, the Bolus Herbarium at UCT, and this Colonial Mutual Life Building in Durban, which in the 1930 was the tallest building in SA. In Cape Town he was a well known personality in the 1940s. He was a President of bod the CPIA and SASA.
Cassim Amra was born in 1919 in Durban Natal (now kwaZulu-Natal). He attended Sastri College, Durban where he represented the senior cricket team. Amra was exposed to George Singh and other activists who played a crucial role in charting a more confrontational course for the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) against the then conservative leadership of the organisation.
After matriculating in 1937, he joined the Durban-based Liberal Studies Group (LSG) and joined members such as IC Meer, Dawood Seedat and Dr Monty Naicker. The LSG's mouthpiece, The Call for Freedom and Justice, was published from Amra's home on Milton Road, Durban. He wrote many of the articles for the paper. Peter Abraham, one of South Africa's best known poets of this period, dedicated his first collection of poems Tell Freedom to his "close friend" Cassim Amra.
Amra was a key member of the Anti Segregationist Council (ASC), which ousted the conservative leadership of the NIC. He opposed South Africa's participation in World War II and criticised Indian involvement in the war effort. In The Call, Amra asked:
Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman's political legacy is today a matter of controversy. There are those, usually of liberal persuasion, who revere him as the most distinguished political leader yet to have represented the Coloured community while there are others, mainly adherents of one of the radical political traditions, who dismiss him as an opportunist and a collaborator. Whatever ones ideological position there can be little argument that in the four decades before his death on 20 February 1940 Abdurahman was far and away the most influential and popular political leader within the Coloured community.
Neil Hudson Aggett was born in Nanyuki, Kenya on 6th October 1953, the first-born child of Aubrey and Joy Aggett. He began his schooling in Kenya, and when his parents moved to South Africa in the 1963,he attended Kingswood College in Grahamstown (1964-1970) where he won numerous awards and certificates. In 1971 he enrolled at the University of Cape Town to study medicine. He completed his medical degree in 1976.
As a doctor, Aggett was exposed to the hardships and poverty-related diseases of workers. He worked mainly in overcrowded Black hospitals in Umtata, Eastern Cape and Tembisa, Transvaal (now Gauteng). While working at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, Transvaal, Aggett won the trust and respect of both staff and patients alike by his enthusiasm towards his job. In an attempt to understand his patients and make communication easier between him and those he treated, he learned Zulu.
It was at Baragwanath that Aggett became involved in the trade union movement. He championed worker rights through his involvement with the Transvaal Branch of the African Food and Canning Workers' Union (AFCWU), gaining unionist trust, and was appointed organiser. Aggett worked fulltime without pay, taking additional weekend night shifts at the hospital to support himself. He would also use his own money to help the workers' cause, such as transport union officials to factories where they organised.He took an additional part-time job with the Industrial Aid Society,he pay attention to workers' health and safety.
In 1979 he lead the organization of the Fatti's and Moni's boycott in Isando and Tembisa,the year that followed he became the secretary of the growing Transvaal (AFCWU).
One of Aggett's first tasks was to help successfully organise Fatti's and Moni's (a food company) workers in the Transvaal at a time when the company's workers in Bellville, Cape Town had been dismissed for choosing to be represented by the union rather than the company's own liaison committee. A strike and international boycott of the company ensued.
In 1981 he took an active part in the ‘Langa summit' that brought together trade unions divided by their attitude to aligning themselves with openly political and community struggles. He was entrusted with setting up a Transvaal solidarity committee to further moves to unity. His aim was to see trade unions united in a mass democratic movement mobilising for the health and prosperity of workers.
Aggett became a target of harassment by the Security Branch of the South African Police and the state labelled him a communist. In late 1981, Aggett was detained for his role in labour organisation. He was taken to Pretoria Central Prison and later transferred to John Vorster Square (a police station) in Johannesburg.
Fellow detainees remember seeing Aggett,strong and healthy man,diminished to a weak and trembling shell.in the last week of his life and also he underwent an interrogation session that lasted for 62 hours before his death.
He died in detention on 5th of February 1982, allegedly by hanging himself with a scarf. He became the 51st person to die in detention and the first White person to die under these circumstances.The union movement had an increasingly strength by mobilizing unparalleled nationwide half-hour work stoppage in protest on 11th of February 1982.Aggett's funeral took place two days later in Johannesburg,there was an outburst of strong anger by union members,students and thousands of mourners marched from Anglican cathedral to West Park Cemetery.
In 1982 an inquest into the death of Aggett was launched. On 21 December 1982, the forty-four day inquest into the death in detention of the Aggett was concluded. The presiding magistrate Pieter Kotze concluded that no one was to blame for his death. This was despite evidence presented by the Aggett family lawyers showing ‘similar fact' of torture from other detainees.
The African Food and Canning Workers' Union (AFCWU) issued a call for all workers to down tools for half an hour on 11 February 1982. In a display of unity that included many Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) members as well as Food and Canning workers, some 90, 000 trade unionists across the country responded. His funeral on 13 February 1982 was filmed and it was estimated that up to 15 000 people attended. The presence of police did not stop mourners from reaffirming their struggle for which Aggett died, by singing revolutionary songs.
After the collapse of Apartheid in 1994, the case of Agget came before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The ‘no -one to blame' verdict was overturned by the TRC. Major Arthur Benoni Cronwright and Lieutenant Stephen Whitehead were held directly responsible by the TRC for ‘for the mental and physical condition of Dr Aggett which led him to take his own life'.
Job Titles:
- History of Women 's Struggle in South Africa
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Member of the SAHO Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Member of the SAHO Board