South African Activist Helen Suzman
Dies at 91
by Clare Nullis, Associated Press
www.truthout.org/, January 1,
2009
South African anti-apartheid activist
Helen Suzman, who won international acclaim as one of the few
white lawmakers to fight against the injustices of racist rule,
died Thursday. She was 91.
Suzman, who was twice nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize, fought a long and lonely battle in the South
African parliament against government repression of the country's
black majority and the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela Foundation chief executive
Achmat Dangor said Suzman was a "great patriot and a fearless
fighter against apartheid."
Suzman's daughter, Frances Jowell, said
that Suzman died peacefully at her Johannesburg home. Jowell told
the South African Press Association that there would be a private
funeral this weekend and a public memorial service in February.
For 13 years, Suzman was the sole opposition
lawmaker in South Africa's parliament, raising her voice time
after time against the introduction of racist legislation by the
National Party government.
After her retirement from parliament in
1989, she remained active in shaping South African society and
was on the Independent Electoral Commission that oversaw the country's
first multiracial elections in 1994.
She was at Mandela's side when he signed
the new constitution in 1996 as South Africa's first black president.
A year later, Mandela awarded her a special gold medal in honor
of her contributions.
"It is a courage born of the yearning
for freedom; of hatred of oppression, injustice and inequity whether
the victim be oneself or another; a fortitude that draws its strength
from the conviction that no person can be free while others are
unfree," Mandela said at the time.
Suzman had first visited Mandela in prison
on Robben Island in 1967, when she heard his grievances about
prison conditions.
"It was an odd and wonderful sight
to see this courageous woman peering into our cells and strolling
around our courtyard. She was the first and only woman ever to
grace our cells," Mandela later recalled.
"Mrs. Suzman was one of the few,
if not the only, member of Parliament who took an interest in
the plight of political prisoners," he said.
Suzman was born in the mining town of
Germiston, east of Johannesburg, to Lithuanian-Jewish parents
who had fled anti-Semitism. Her childhood was the charmed one
of most whites - tennis, swimming lessons and private schooling.
When Suzman got to university, she began
to speak out against the conditions under which black people were
forced to live, especially the dreaded pass system that restricted
their movement. Her greatest achievement was helping to ensure
that the pass laws were abolished.
In 1953, she was elected to parliament
for General Jan Smuts' United Party. A few years later, she helped
formed the liberal democratic Progressive Party, a later reincarnation
of which is still the official opposition. A snap election in
1961 devastated the party, leaving Suzman on her own until 1974.
She kept her seat until her retirement in 1989.
"I had a wonderful opportunity to
use the parliamentary stage to bring the world's attention to
what was going on," she said in an Associated Press interview
on her 90th birthday in November 2007.
Suzman's relationship with former President
P.W. Botha, one of the most ruthless enforcers of apartheid laws,
was one of mutual loathing. She described him as "an obnoxious
bully" and said that if he were female, "he would arrive
in Parliament on a broomstick," according to the Helen Suzman
Foundation Web site.
Botha once referred to her as "a
vicious little cat" - Suzman didn't mind as she adored animals
and was surrounded by them at her home.
Suzman was bestowed with 27 honorary doctorates,
including ones from Oxford, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Cambridge
universities. She was made Dame of the British Empire in 1989
- a rare honor for a foreigner.
In addition to many other titles, she
said she was especially proud of being declared "Enemy of
the State" by Zimbabwe's autocratic President Robert Mugabe
in 2001.
At her 90th birthday, she spoke openly
about her disillusionment with the lack of progress in addressing
crime, unemployment and poverty in South Africa but praised the
post-apartheid government for economic policy achievements,
"Masses of black people are very
disappointed with lack of delivery of housing, water and sanitation,"
she told the AP.
Suzman prided herself for reading four
newspapers every morning and championing causes close to her heart
- including the decriminalization of marijuana.
"The great thing about my life is
that is has never been boring - long, interesting, maddening at
times but never boring," she said.
Associated Press Writer Celean Jacobson
in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
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