THOSE of us of a certain age will remember the boycott and demonstrations against the racist apartheid regime of white South Africa and the struggle now is against apartheid in the Israeli state.
A leading figure in both struggles has died. Ahmed Kathrada was a lifelong comrade of Nelson Mandela in South Africa’s freedom struggle. Kathrada began his resistance to oppression more than 70 years ago and did not stop fighting for the rights of people all over the world until the short illness that took his life. At the age of 17, he was arrested for taking part in the passive resistance campaign against racist laws targeting the Indian community.
He was arrested again in 1963 and tried along with Mandela and other ANC leaders at the Rivonia Trial on charges of engaging in armed struggle. Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of them on the infamous Robben Island. He is survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, whom he met in 1990, shortly after she was released from prison, the first woman to be convicted by the apartheid regime for “high treason”.
A key focus of Ahmed Kathrada’s continued activism was his unflinching support for the Palestinian struggle, admonishing those who shy away from truth-telling and clear solidarity. His foundation supported the struggle against the policies of the Israeli government. As Nelson Mandela said: “We know too well that our freedom isn’t complete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
B McKenna,
Overtoun Avenue,
Dumbarton.
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