The Ultimate Sacrifice –Ruth First, Dulcie September, GriffithsMxenge And Florence Ribeiro
By Sam Mathe

Martyrdom is commonly regarded as the fate of men – Mahatma Gandhi, Dr King et al. But since Joan of Arc (1412-1431), a French freedom fighter and military leader, was sold to her British enemies and burnt at stake, history has witnessed a number of female martyrs. Ruth First (1925-1982) was a writer and activist. Daughter of founder members of the SACP – Julius and Matilda First, she was, like her husband, Joe Slovo, a nemesis of the apartheid regime. After she was forced into exile in 1964, she became one of the prominent leaders of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. An astute scholar, First was appointed Director of Research in the Centre for African Studies at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique. She was killed by a letter bomb on August 17 1982, an assassination that was ordered by apartheid superspy, Craig Williamson. Dulcie September (1935-1988) was another prominent Anti- Apartheid Movement campaigner whose assassination in exile was linked to Craig Williamson. She was chief representative of the ANC in Paris and was opening the ANC offi ces on the morning of 29 March 1988 when she was struck in the head with five bullets from a .22-calibre gun. Before her murder, September was reportedly investigating some illegal arms dealing between France and South Africa and was vocal in her call for economic sanctions against South Africa. French musician Jean Michel Jarre, dedicated his album, Revolutions (1988), to her in a song titled September. Victoria Mxenge (1942-1985) was another martyred South African antiapartheid activist who was remembered in song. She is mentioned alongside Steve Biko and Neil Aggett in Johnny Clegg and Savuka’s protest hit, Asimbonanga (uMandela). A trained nurse, she sacrifi ced the health profession and followed in her husband, Griffi ths Mxenge’s footsteps as a human rights lawyer. She became more dedicated to her cause in 1981 after her husband was brutally murdered by Vlakplaas’s notorious hit squads. Griffiths Mxenge was murdered just before the Pietermaritzburg Treason Trial in which where she was a member of the defence team. A jailed policeman later confessed that he was paid R5 000 for the ‘job’. He had managed to enter the house, shot her five times on the chest but when she wouldn’t fall he followed up with an axe and chopped her. Griffiths Mxenge’s gruesome murder sent shockwaves through the South African and international community. World leaders, including the Reagan Administration, condemned the murder. Her funeral was a very tense affair which attracted 10 000 mourners. During the service a policeman was set alight and killed. Her killer was released in 1991 while her husband’s assassins were granted amnesty during the TRC hearings – an act which the Mxenge family felt was a gross miscarriage of justice. It was a feeling shared by the Ribeiro family after the murder of community leaders, Fabian and Florence Ribeiro (1933- 1986). The couple was shot while relaxing on the courtyard of their Mamelodi, Pretoria, home in December 1986. Florence’s compassionate spirit and community involvement betrayed her difficult upbringing. The fourth of fi ve children, Florence’s father, Henry Mathe, was a coal miner and died when she was only twelve. Her mother Kate was left with the huge responsibility of raising the girls. And although she never saw the inside of a classroom she single-handedly managed, against all odds, to provide a decent education for her children – augmenting her meagre wages as a domestic worker by brewing and selling traditional beer, a ‘crime’ which saw her spending many weekends in police cells. Whenever that happened, the children were left on their own devices. These early experiences politicised her young mind. Later her awareness of the country’s racial injustices became clearer after she met Robert Sobukwe, the charismatic pan- Africanist who would later marry her sister, Veronica Mathe. Despite the family hardships, Florence qualified as a school teacher while her three sisters became nurses. But after meeting her future husband, Dr Fabian Ribeiro, she quit teaching to become a businesswoman. The Ribeiros were pillars of strength in the Mamelodi community. Dr Ribeiro selflessly treated the sick and victims of police assaults free of charge. The couple also sheltered young activists and granted financial assistance to needy students. In February 1986 their home was petrol bombed after he appeared in Witness to Apartheid – a documentary which chronicled the abuses of activists in police cells. After having survived several attempts on their lives, their luck ran out on that fateful December afternoon. Two prime ministers who died in the hands of assassins were incidentally women from the Indian sub-continent. Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) was the first woman who ruled India for an unprecedented fi fteen years. Born in a patriarchal Hindu society, her political ascendance made her a symbol of feminism in India. She was reverently addressed by most rural women as Indira Amma (Mother). Her popular slogan, Garibi Hatao (‘Eradicate Poverty’), sums her political legacy of compassionate leadership. Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007) was the first and to date only woman elected to lead a Muslim state, Pakistan. Remarkably, she served two separate terms; between 1988-1990 and 1993- 1996). Both were born into influential political dynasties and were daughters of prime ministers. Gandhi was the only child of India’s first prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru while Bhutto was the first-born child of Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s ninth prime minister. Bhutto was killed by suicide bombers just after an election rally while she was attempting a third bid at the premiership position while Gandhi was assassinated in offi ce by her own bodyguards. She predicted her death and remarked: “Martyrdom does not end something, it is only a beginning.”

Sam Mathe
Editor