Edward Bassie Rakodi
1944-1988
Obituary in Sechaba, October 1988
On August 19th, the ANC and the South African community in London paid its last respects to Comrade Edward Bassie Rakodi, who was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium. His mother, Wilhepina Lelata Rakodi, came all the way from South Africa to bid farewell to her son.
Comrade Bassie - as we all called him - was born in Johannesburg on June 14, 1944, his parents having left the Zeerust area in the northern Transvaal in 1932. They were migrant labourers. Bassie`s father died in 1945, leaving behind two sons and one daughter.
Bassie could not go far at school because of poverty at home - his illiterate mother had to raise three children on her own. Bassie had to look for work. He also used his musical talent, singing with a musical quartet composed of youngsters, popularly known in and around Johannesburg as the "Shelton Kids." In this way, he effectively assisted his mother in supporting the family.
In 1964, at the age of 20, Bassie left his home and South Africa to join those hundreds who had answered the call of the ANC. He joined the newly-formed Umkhonto we Sizwe (the military wing of the ANC). Some of his friends had been arrested, and others were already out of the country. Zeerust, where his parents came from, had just experienced one of those brutal repressions that rural populations all over the country experienced in the late 1950s.
Bassie Rakodi became part of the first generation of Umkhonto we Sizwe veterans - umgwenye. These are men and women who sacrificed everything, including their youth, to make the ANC what it is today. Bassie underwent military training in Africa and abroad. He was an unassuming soldier of the ANC, and this quality of his gave him strength during those difficult years in ANC camps in Kongwa, Tanzania, and elsewhere.
We should remember that the 1960s were difficult years in the history of our struggle. The leadership of the ANC was either in gaol or in exile. On the ground, the mass movement was almost totally smashed. In 1964, Tanzania was the one independent African state nearest to South Africa. Bassie and his comrades loyally and patiently followed the instructions of the leadership.
When, in 1967, the ANC made preparations for the operations in Zimbabwe, Bassie was there, and even after those hard times in what was then Rhodesia, he found himself back in the ANC camps. This was the time when the ANC was preparing for the 1969 Morogoro Conference. Bassie was involved in the furious pre-conference preparations, helping to formulate the policy of the ANC for the 1970s. When many comrades were frustrated, tired, angry or deserting the movement, Bassie was ever smiling, singing his favourite song: Unzima lomthwalo.
When the Soweto uprising broke out in 1976 - the time when a section of the ANC machinery externally was geared towards receiving thousands of victims of apartheid brutality and barbarity - Bassie was not there; he was studying in the German Democratic Republic. It was there that he became acquainted with aspects of the international work of the ANC. After finishing his studies in the GDR, he went to London where he became involved in some aspects of the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
Bassie never had enemies within the movement, though he differed with some people - that is normal. He had many enemies, but these were the racists, the imperialists and the colonialists.
What does the life of a man like Bassie mean to us?
Bassie died at the age of 44; his mother, who is 74, is still alive. She is in South Africa, living under the conditions we all know. Exile life - the mere fact that you are removed from your people, from your roots - that is in itself a killer. Apartheid is killing us everywhere. The lesson is that we must all do something to remove this killer which is apartheid. Bassie saw this need. That is why he joined the ANC. After 24 years, Lelata Rakodi, Bassie`s mother, had to go to London to see her son in a coffin. That is what apartheid means.
Bassie belongs to that young generation of our people that followed Mandela, Sisulu and Tambo. His sacrifices, and those of his generation, have led to the crisis that is taking place in South Africa. The Boers are no longer in control of developments in southern Africa.
This is the everlasting contribution of people like Bassie to that situation - ordinary, working-class people who, through sheer loyalty to the movement and dedication to the cause of our people, have strengthened us all.
