Human rights lawyer Griffiths Mxenge was assassinated on the night time of 19 November 1981.
Human rights lawyer Griffiths Mxenge was assassinated on the night time of 19 November 1981.
He was the son of peasant farmers in Rayi close to King William’s City (Qonce) who certified as a lawyer. He may have pursued a lifetime of privilege, consolation and ease. However Mxenge selected to be a freedom fighter and a human rights lawyer in the course of the occasions of the brutal apartheid regime.
Within the Fifties, whereas a pupil at Fort Hare college, he joined the ANC Youth League. After finishing his BA diploma majoring in English and Roman Dutch legislation, he proceeded along with his LLB diploma on the College of Natal. Whereas a pupil Mxenge was detained for 190 days and later convicted underneath the Suppression of Communism Act due to his ANC activism. He was despatched to Robben Island to serve a time period of two years.
After his launch from Robben Island he was served with a two-year banning order and common detention by the apartheid safety institution, together with a interval of 109 days in solitary confinement.
Mxenge died in his forties on the entrance line of the anti-apartheid freedom battle. A younger man within the peak of his life. He was killed in probably the most grotesque method by the apartheid regime’s demise squad. There have been 45 stab wounds on his physique inflicted by three okapi knives and a looking knife. A wheel spanner was additionally utilized by the killers. They slit his throat and minimize off his ears. They minimize his abdomen into items. This was the bare expression of apartheid’s racist barbarism.
Griffiths was principled and moral. He didn’t search fame or fortune. Being an activist within the apartheid period was totally different to being an activist within the post-apartheid interval. You place your life on the road if you resisted apartheid. That is the trail that Griffiths selected as a result of he was deeply rooted within the soil of South Africa. He couldn’t extricate himself from the land and its individuals. That is why he sacrificed every thing; his profession, his revenue, his household and, finally, his life. The political freedom and civic liberties that South Africans get pleasure from as we speak is rooted within the blood of individuals reminiscent of Griffiths Mxenge.
As a lawyer, he represented Maphetla Mohapi of the Black Consciousness Motion, who died in police custody. He represented Joseph Mdluli, an uMkhonto weSizwe cadre who additionally died in police detention. He was the instructing legal professional of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) chief Zephaniah Mothopeng within the Bethal “terrorism” trial. This tells us that he had the braveness to struggle these authorized circumstances.
Though he was a dedicated cadre of the ANC, Griffiths was not a sectarian and had the knowledge to behave outdoors of social gathering political sectarian divisions. He revered everybody who fought towards apartheid, which is why he represented freedom fighters from political formations outdoors of his ANC, such because the PAC and the Black Consciousness Motion. He valued the unity of the oppressed individuals and all of the progressive actions resisting Apartheid.
It behoves us to do not forget that these nationwide liberation actions in South Africa had been deemed to be terrorist organisations and the leaders reminiscent of Nelson Mandela had been declared terrorists by Western governments.
With Israel’s genocidal struggle in Gaza occurring for greater than a yr now has shattered the picture of Western governments reminiscent of the USA, Germany and the UK as a champion of worldwide legislation and human rights. On this context, the South African authorities has honoured the legacy of Griffiths Mxenge by standing as much as Israel and to defend worldwide legislation and human rights by pursuing the costs of genocide towards Israel within the Worldwide Court docket of Justice.
The anniversary of Mxenge’s assassination is a chance to replicate. What would he take into consideration us? Will we have now the braveness to look him within the eye and inform him that after he was killed we liberated our nation politically however haven’t democratised our financial system and we stay as one of the crucial unequal nations of the world? As we keep in mind how Mxenge died, what we’d say if he had been to ask us: “What have you ever sacrificed for this nation, for freedom and justice? And when he asks us: “Why do a few of you reside a lifetime of luxurious and opulence whereas the vast majority of persons are ravenous and residing in squalor? Why is it that you simply say that South Africa belongs to all however solely a minority owns land and property? Why are you who’re dedicated to social justice and the equal distribution of wealth so divided? Why do you steal from your individual authorities when the blood that was sacrificed by comrades was to create a individuals’s authorities whose wealth belongs to the individuals of the nation?
What are you doing with the political freedom that so many sacrificed their lives for? Will you solely get up when the political system reverses to the proper or will you act now, urgently, ethically and fearlessly in pursuit of the actualisation of social justice so that each youngster will get a top quality training, correct diet, a good probability at life, reside in a brick home with water and electrical energy, have entry to high quality medical care.
Equal rights and equal citizenship with a shared and democratised financial system, a social possession of wealth the place each South African can reside a dignified life — these are the values that Mxenge and plenty of like him fought and died for. We are able to solely actually honour his legacy if we actualise these values.
Iqbal Suleman is a social justice lawyer and former head of the legislation clinic for Legal professionals for Human Rights in Pretoria.