On the Friday before he died Walter Sisulu walked into the African National Congress’s headquarters in Johannesburg and met ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe and Northern Cape Premier Manne Dipico.
In a frail state of health, Sisulu wanted to know from the two what they were planning to do to honour the memory of a Northern Cape ANC activist, Dr Arthur Letele, who died in 1965.
It was vintage Sisulu, generous to a fault and less concerned about his own situation. This act of concern three days before his death was reminiscent of a scene back in 1963 when Sisulu and eight others were arrested at Lilliesleaf farm in Rivonia, Johannesburg.
Then Sisulu tried to jump out of a window when he saw the police approach. But immediately outside he was confronted by a dog on a leash held by a policeman.
Instead of throwing his hands up in the air in surrender, Sisulu immediately barked at his captor: ”How is my wife and children?” Not having seen them in a long time because he was underground, his immediate instinct was their welfare, he later told his daughter-in-law Elinor Sisulu.
This is how everyone in and outside the ANC remembers the man: humble, gentle, unselfish and deeply caring for his people. In the words of fellow Robben Island comrade Ahmed Kathrada: ”Nelson Mandela was liked and respected. Walter Sisulu was loved.”
This week tributes flowed from the United Nations, the United States, the ANC, the Freedom Front, the Democratic Alliance, the Azanian People’s Organisation and the United Democratic Movement, among hundreds of other notables.
But it’s likely that the tributes from ordinary South Africans are the ones that would make Sisulu smile. He passed away in the arms of his family in Linden on Monday, May 5.
The young man who boarded a train for the first time in 1928 on his trip to Johannesburg to escape the boredom and poverty of Qutubeni village, in Engcobo, Eastern Cape, had captured the hearts of the world.
Up until that time, the closest Sisulu had come to city life was visiting the dusty ”town” of Cofimvaba. On his arrival in Johannesburg, Sisulu, like other migrants, lived in dingy quarters.
He worked as a milkboy and a domestic worker. Despite leaving school in Sstandard four, he was con-sidered educated by other workers who could barely read or write. He would help them write letters and read others from home.
He later worked his way up, becoming a clerk, and started participating in township activities in Orlando.
Inspired by Clements Kadalie of the Industrial Commercial Union in Port Elizabeth where he worked briefly, Sisulu met Dr Alfred Xuma in Johannesburg who was later to become the president of the ANC. Xuma also came from Engcobo.
In Johannesburg, Sisulu met Albertina Thethiwe, an activist in her own right but who was to prove the pillar of the family when politics consumed Walter. The abiding image of recent times is of the twosome, still very much in love, finally enjoying the fruits of freedom.
His life really changed in 1940 when he joined the ANC and opened an estate agency with two others.
The estate agency was where he first met Nelson Mandela, who was taken aback to see a black man in formal clothing running an office.
Sisulu, Mandela and his law associate, Oliver Tambo, were later to form a deep friendship and a commitment to the freedom of black people that completely turned their lives around.
They were the core of the newly formed ANC Youth League which transformed the ANC from a passive organisation led only by educated, respectable members of the community to a mass-based, militant movement that sought to confront the white government immediately and directly.
Their programme of mass action in the 1950s led to their arrest several times and to the banning of the ANC, the Pan Africanist Congress and other organisations.
But despite his perceived militancy, Sisulu was also a voice of moderation among more militant youths.
ANC veteran Josiah Jele recalls: ”In 1949 some of us were narrow nationalists and parochial but Sisulu taught us to embrace a broad notion of nationalism that accepted everyone, irrespective of the class, colour or creed. We were overzealous, hot-blooded youth who wanted nothing but action but he advised patience. Where we were opposed to working with formations of other ideologies, he would show how tactically it was necessary to do that so that we could weaken the oppressor.”
Sisulu grew politically after he attended conferences in Romania and Poland and also travelled to the Soviet Union, China and the United Kingdom.
After being arrested several times between 1956 and 1961, Sisulu went underground in violation of his bail conditions. He was rearrested in 1963 during the Rivonia raid and became the star witness in the subsequent trial, in which all the defendants faced the death penalty.
In the words of one of the four defence lawyers, George Bizos, the prosecutor, Percy Yutar, made the mistake of trying to argue that Africans had no grievances about their living conditions but were being misled by agitators.
”Sisulu was cross-examined for a week and made such an impression that if the judge had ever entertained the death sentence, he realised he could not possibly impose such a sentence on such a dignified, straightforward and thoughtful man as Sisulu,” Bizos said.
The trialists were sentenced to life and sent to Robben Island, where Sisulu spent 25 years before being released in 1989.
”I used to visit them in jail and Walter was very concerned about the welfare of his family. He was worried about their suffering and harassment and also wanted to know how the ANC was doing. He did not want to discuss his own discomfort,” Bizos said.
KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Transport S’bu Ndebele, who was sent to Robben Island in the 1970s, said Sisulu helped many freshly convicted Black Consciousness adherents shape their political convictions.
”We were fresh recruits from the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) to the ANC and the transition was difficult for us. Sisulu said it was natural that we and the likes of ”Terror” Lekota had started in the BCM. He explained that the ANC had undergone similar ideological tensions in 1959 when some young people battled with the ANC’s non-racial stance and eventually left to form the Pan Africanist Congress.
”Other than his strategic genius, he was a caring person who took a keen interest in the small details of our lives like wives, families and letters from home. He also encouraged us to study,” Ndebele said.
Former ANC secretary general Cyril Ramaphosa was chairperson of the reception committee when Sisulu and seven others were released from prison in 1989.
”As soon as he was released, the Mass Democratic Movement was invariably enhanced by his clarity of mind and incisiveness.
”We were struggling to set up ANC structures after its unbanning and he immediately brought a new dynamism into the process.
The first welcome rally at the FNB stadium was simply incredible as the capacity crowd sang, ‘Ha ho na ya tshwanang le wena [Walter, there is no one like you]!’ That’s when the slogan ‘ANC Lives’ became popular.
”He will be remembered as a gentle giant of the struggle. He was a peacemaker at critical, tense moments but always played a background role and never sought the limelight,” Ramaphosa said.
Sisulu also played an important reconciliatory role when he stood for the ANC deputy presidency to avoid a potentially divisive contest between rivals Thabo Mbeki and Chris Hani at the ANC congress in Durban in 1991.
”Walter was the chair of the interim ANC structure after the unbanning and it was clear that there was going to be a bruising contest for the deputy presidency,” said a former youth league leader.
”He and the rest of the leadership decided it was in the interest of
the organisation for him to stand. Once he stood, the younger leaders decided they could not stand against their own father figure.”
Motlanthe said that even when Sisulu was ill and going in and out of hospital over the past few years, he wanted to play a role in the ANC.
”He would come to Luthuli House and sometimes visit Kliptown, where the Freedom Charter was drafted in 1955, providing inspiration to us all. Sisulu was the embodiment of the tripartite alliance because everybody respected him whenever he intervened to ensure organisational unity.
He was a very special person and I don’t think we will see anyone like him in the foreseeable future. He leaves a legacy of integrity, honesty, humility and generosity more than anything else,” Motlanthe said.
The last words come from Mandela who this week said a part of him was gone.
”There are those of us who, after the attainment of democracy, have held high positions in government and public life and who have received awards and accolades from across the world.
”Walter Sisulu never held a position as a member of Parliament or in the executive branch of government and relatively few international awards or prizes came his way, yet his greatness as leader and freedom fighter is beyond dispute or argument,” Mandela wrote in the foreword to Sisulu’s biography.