Tribute: Albertina Nontsikelelo Sisulu (1918 – 2011)

Written by Sam Mathe
Monday, 22 August 2011 10:12

In 1918 when Albertina Sisulu was born, black women in South Africa were classified by law as minors – even compared to their own sons. The age gap between mothers and sons was also immaterial to the country’s lawmakers and bureaucrats. Married women relied on the permission and signatures of their husbands to fill out important official documents. Widowed mothers suffered the indignity and humiliation of having their sons speaking and acting on their behalf.

Ironically, while the law was white, educated and politically enlightened black men also denied their womenfolk equal status. In 1918 women were denied membership of the African National Congress (ANC). But women, who were already playing activist roles by 1914 when they demonstrated against pass laws, were not prepared to take these insults and discrimination lying down. In 1918 they formed the Bantu Women’s League, a forerunner of today’s ANC Women’s League and a forum they used to launch civil disobedience campaigns – especially against the hated pass laws.

The first president of the Bantu Women’s League was Charlotte Maxeke, a US-educated trailblazer and political activist. She was the first black South African woman graduate in 1905 when she received a Bachelor of Science degree from Wilberforce University in Ohio, America. She was also the first president of the National Council of African Women. Despite her pioneering activism, the ANC only started accepting women into the organisation in 1943, five years before the formation of the ANC Women’s League.

In 1948 Albertina was already a married mother of two, practising as a midwife and sole breadwinner after her husband, a political firebrand who had started his career as an estate agent, started working full time for the ANC. But she was instrumental in the formation of the Women’s League, and four years earlier (1944) she was the only woman who attended the political gathering that marked the founding of the ANC Youth League.

It was in 1944 that she married Walter Sisulu, the league’s first general secretary. At the wedding ceremony, Anton Lembede, the league’s founding president, summed up her destiny when he said, “Albertina, you have married a married man; Walter married politics long before he met you.” But she was already committed and was unfazed by Lembede’s statements. When the young and handsome estate agent proposed to her, she shocked him when she “revealed” that she was already a mother of two kids.

He was initially dismayed, but it was her way of saying to him that she was responsible for the upbringing of her siblings, and even in marriage, she was determined to continue with that role. Orphaned from an early age, she was determined to lead an independent life, responsible for others. Since then this feisty woman who became a political leader and formidable activist in her own right demonstrated that she was responsible for the welfare of all children. As a trained midwife she helped to bring scores of children into the world.

In her household she raised seven children – two were adopted – under very trying circumstances. Her husband spent 26 years in jail while over the years she had to endure long spells in detention – not to mention endless bans because of her unwavering political activities for a just and free South Africa. During these difficult years, her political persecution was made even more challenging by the fact that her children were also banned, detained and exiled. But through it all she bore her cross with exceptional fortitude and extraordinary stoicism.

Despite her tribulations, she remained a nurturing and inspirational presence to hundreds of young activists who sought her counsel and succour when authorities wanted them behind the bars. As a professional nurse, she attended to their bullet wounds during township uprisings such as happened on 16 June 1976. She was also instrumental in arranging hide-outs and exile for young activists – a true mother of the nation.

It was a role she played with dignity, grace, humility and selflessness and with a fearless determination to overcome apartheid rule. “The struggle continues,” she told a political gathering in 1985 during Human Rights Day. “We will not stop until freedom is won. It is high time that we tell this government what we want. And, even if we are jailed again, it is not going to scare our people. We are used to it. This is the beginning of the end, and unless our country is given back to us, we will never rest. We will not stop until the authentic leaders of the people of South Africa are taken out of jail to lead their people.”

She was indeed a giant of the anti-apartheid struggle but she was also a symbol of its moral values – a reminder of what she and her generation stood for as opposed to what is becoming a culture of self-entitlement, corruption and greed within the ruling party. True to her Germanic name, which means “noble, bright, famous”, she leaves behind a legacy of moral uprightness, selfless sacrifice and a flawless model of motherhood – a bright lodestar that illuminated a dark world.

And although she was born during a time when women were still regarded as minors, through her exemplary leadership qualities, she demonstrated that women are indeed the flowers of the nation and equals of their male counterparts.

ALBERTINA SISULU’S JOURNEY

1918 – Born Nontsikelelo Thethiwe in the village of Camama, Eastern Cape on 21 October.
1936 – Enrols at Mariazell College in Matatiele, Eastern Cape, for her high school education.
1939 – Obtains her junior certificate.
1940 – Starts working as a trainee nurse at the Johannesburg General Hospital.
1943 – The ANC accepts women as members at the Congress’s 1943 conference.
1944 – Weds Walter Sisulu, secretary general of the ANC Youth League, in July this year.
1945 – The couple’s first child, Maxwell Sisulu, is born.
1946 – Starts working as a midwife.
1948 – The ANC Women’s League is formed with Ida Mntwana as its first president. The couple’s second son, Mlungisi, is born.
1950 – Third son, Zwelakhe, is born.
1952 – Albertina Sisulu and thousands of other women play a leading role in organising and participating in the historic Defiance Campaign of Unjust Laws.
1954 – She becomes a member of the executive of the Federation of South African Women, which she helped to launch this year. Lindiwe Sisulu, a daughter, is born.
1955 – Albertina Sisulu and other women activists play a pivotal role in organising the Congress of the People in Kliptown where the Freedom Charter was adopted.
1956 – On 9 August Albertina Sisulu is among women who lead an anti-pass march to the prime minister’s office in the Union Buildings.
1956-61 – Some of the leaders of the Women’s March, including Lillian Ngoyi and Helen Joseph, are arrested and charged with treason alongside Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and 152 others during the historic Treason Trial.
1958 – The Sisulus’ fifth child, Nonkululeko, is born. Albertina leads a group of women to the old Market Street pass office where they destroy their passbooks.
1960 – The government opens fire on unarmed anti-pass demonstrators in Sharpeville, killing 69. The ANC and PAC are banned.
1963 – Walter Sisulu goes underground, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves. Albertina is arrested in June and becomes the first woman to be detained for 90 days without trial.
1964 – She is served with a five-year banning order.
1976 – Her daughter Lindiwe is arrested and tortured by the police. She goes into exile.
1979 – Albertina is banned for two years.
 1984 – She plays a key role in the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and is elected as one of the three founding presidents of this anti-apartheid movement.
1984 – She begins working as a nurse at the surgery of Dr Abubaker Asvat, a prominent black consciousness activist who is assassinated five years later.
1989 – Albertina travels abroad for the first time and at a meeting with US president George Bush senior and British premier Margaret Thatcher, she calls for the strengthening of sanctions against apartheid South Africa. She is reunited with her husband after 26 years when Walter Sisulu and other Rivonia Triallists are released.
1991 – Albertina and Walter jointly receive the Catherine A. Dunfey Award from the New England Circle in Boston, Massachusetts, for their “outstanding contribution to the struggle for liberation in South Africa and for justice and human dignity the world over”.
1994 – She becomes a member of parliament until her retirement in 1999
1996 – She is honoured at the annual dinner of the Medical Education for South African Blacks in Washington, DC.
1997 – She testifies before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and is accused by Judge Ntsebeza of shielding Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
2003 – The South African Women for Women presents her with the Woman of Distinction Award for “her courageous lifelong struggle for human rights and dignity”.
2003 – Walter Sisulu, her husband of 60 years, dies in her arms.
2004 – She is voted 57th in the list of Great South Africans.
2010 – She is conferred with the Family Value Award by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for “exemplifying motherly values in her own family”.
2011 – She dies at her Linden, Johannesburg, home on June 2 while watching TV with her grandchildren.

IN HER OWN WORDS:

“Until then I had no political ideas. I was devout until I met Walter” (On her political involvement before she met her husband)

“Women are the people who are going to relieve us from all this oppression and depression. The rent boycott that is happening in Soweto now is alive because of the women. It is the women who are on the street committees educating the people to stand up and protect each other.” (On the role of women in the liberation struggle, said in 1987 at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle)

“Walter, what do I do without you? It was for you who I woke up in the morning. It was for you who I lived...You were taken away by the evils of the past the first time, but I knew you would come back to me. Now the cold hand of death has taken you and left a void in my heart.” (On the death of her husband)
“Education is the one weapon that will uplift the nation.” (During the opening of the Alexandra Teachers’ Centre in 1991)

“Although politics have given me a rough life, there is absolutely nothing I regret about what I have done and what has happened to me and my family throughout all these years. Instead I have been strengthened and feel more of a woman than I would otherwise.” (On the sacrifices she has made over the years)
 
WHAT THEY SAID:

“The amazing thing about this mother who carries so many burdens is that her face is always very peaceful, relaxed. You need to see her to believe it. How she manages this is indeed a great mystery to me.” (The late Ellen Khuzwayo in Call Me Woman, 1985)

“Mama Albertina Sisulu was indeed a mother of our nation. She has unquestionably earned that title. She was a veteran and heroine of many epic battles of our struggle against apartheid and oppression.” (ANC Veterans’ League)

“A mother selflessly dedicates herself to her children, and that is what she did, not only for her own children, but also for the entire nation. Her leadership was special because it was defined by selfless service and humility over many decades despite all the suffering and challenges of the struggle against apartheid.” (ANC)

“Mama Albertina understood that our struggle was first and foremost about improving the lives of our people. She, like many others, was willing to sacrifice her own comfort, her own family and her own life, so that all our people could be free and live a better life.” (South African Communist Party)