13 June 2003
The tombstone of Harry Themba Gwala will be unveiled in a ceremony to be held tomorrow as detailed below:
Time: 10h00, Saturday, 14 June 2003
Venue: KwaSwayimane, Pietermaritzburg
The Gwala family will also unveil the tombstones of sons and daugther of Harry Gwala - Lulu (daughter), Max Mfana (son), and Nxoloni Duze (son).
Harry Gwala served a long term of imprisonment in Robben Island and was a senior leader of the defunct South African Congress of Trade Unions, the ANC and the SACP. At the time of his death he was a member of the Provincial Legislature of KwaZulu Natal.
Gwala passed away on 20 June 1995 after suffering a heart attack. (Text of a short biography of Gwala and a tribute by Charles Nqakula, SACP National Chairperson are below).
CONTACT
Smiso Nkwanyana - SACP Provincial Secretary in KwaZulu Natal
Mobile: 082 468 7184
BIOGRAPHY OF HARRYW GWALA
Harry Gwala was born in July 1920 and grew up in the Pietermaritzburg area. His political commitment was to due to the early trade union movement. After completing his teacher's diploma at Adams College, he taught at Slangspruit. Amongst his students was Moeral Secretary of the SACP in exile.
He joined the CPSA in 1942 and the ANC two years later. It was during this time that he began organising workers in the chemical and building industry and formed the Rubber and Cable Workers Union in Howick. Due to the large migrant labour population, it became difficult to build permanent structures, he however laid strong foundations. In 1950 he was one of the organisers of the national stay-away and was listed as a communist and then banned. He then worked at Edendale hospital but was fired for organising hospital workers into the then SACTU.
After the banning of the ANC in 1960 comrade Gwala became active in the underground until his arrest in 1964 for sabotage and recruiting members for Umkhonto We Sizwe and was sent to Robben Island. He was released in 1972 and restricted to Maritzburg. As a result he could not pursue either his teaching or trade union activities, he then ran a laundry collection business in the area. Nonetheless, he was at the forefront of attempts to revive SACTU which had been dormant at the time due to detentions and bannings.
Following the workers strike in August 1976, Comrade Gwala was arrested with a number of other ANC stalwarts and charged under the Terrorism Act he was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island.
On Robben Island Comrade Gwala was known for his Marxist-Leninist teachings particularly amongst the youth. While he was in prison his wife Elda past away and he was not allowed to attend the funeral. In the 80's a motor neuron robbed him of the use of his arms, leading to his release in November 1988. Despite all these, he continued to inspire millions of our people in the struggle for democracy, peace and justice.
He was elected the first Chairperson of the ANC in Natal Midlands after the unbanning of the movement in 1990. In 1991 Gwala was elected to the ANC National Executive Committee where he served until 1994. He was subsequently nominated to the SACP Central Committee until his suspensior the same year). At the time of his death, he was still a member of the SACP but not serving in any official capacity.
AFTER THE APRIL 1994 ELECTIONS GWALA WAS NOMINATED AS A PROVINCIAL MEMBER OF THE KWAZULU-NATAL LEGISLATURE WHERE HE ALSO SERVED AS ANC CHIEF WHIP.
Harry Gwala - Man of Steel
Harry Gwala, SACP and ANC stalwart, died after a long illness on 20th June 1995. The following is a tribute by Charles Nqakula, General Secretary SACP
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare them..." So begins the last paragraph of the Communist Manifesto. Whenever I read those lines, I think of our comrade, Harry Themba Gwala.
Harry Gwala spoke his mind, always. In doing this he was prepared to ruffle feathers, to criticise anyone, no matter how important, in our movement. That was Harry Gwala.
He was born in New Hanover in the Natal Midlands in 1920. His father was a Lutheran lay preacher. I suspect the orator in Harry Gwala was nurtured in those earliest years, listening to his father. I don't know whether Gwala senior was a good speaker. The son was outstanding. Our political culture, born in mass struggle, has produced a fine crop of public speakers. But, for me, Harry Gwala was among the best of all. He has his imitators, but few if any equals. Even in his last years, with his arms disabled, his neck encased in a brace, when Gwala stood up in a meeting, instant silence would descend. The gathering might be a behind-closed-doors ANC national executive committee meeting, or it might be tens of thousands at a mass rally. Maybe you were going to agree, maybe disagree with Gwala, but you knew you were going to hear fireworks.
Those of us who heard him will never forget his brief speech at the FNB night vigil at Chris Hani's funeral. It was passionate, controlled anger at its most incisive.
But Harry Gwala was not just an orator, he was also an outstanding teacher.
This, indeed, was his first profession. He graduated with a teacher's diploma from Adams College and taught at Slangspruit, where one of his students was the young Moses Mabhida, who later went on to become SACP general secretary in exile.
In 1942, Gwala joined the CPSA (as the Communist Party in South Africa was then known). Two years later he joined the ANC. Gwala's political commitments led him to shift careers. He left formal teaching and became a full-time trade union organiser. But he never stopped being a teacher.
Generations of South Africans benefitted from his political teaching skills. George Mashamba, now an ANC MP and SACP central committee member, was one of those who learnt from Gwala on Robben Island. "We had political study groups on the Island, but we suffered from a lack of political literature," Mashamba remembers. "All we had was conservative educational material and official government publications."
"Comrade Harry disagreed with our complaints. He said if you read Das Kapital you will realise that Marx used exactly those kinds of official sources. Marxists must be able to build their theories from any source."
Harry Gwala had his full share of suffering. Listed, then banned, he was deprived of a livelihood in the 1950s. He was severely tortured in the 1970s by the Security Police, his comrade Joseph Mdluli being killed under interrogation at the same time. Gwala served two long sentences on Robben Island, the second was a life sentence. While a prisoner, his wife Elda died, and he was not allowed to attend the funeral. In prison, during his second sentence, he contracted a terrible, debilitating motor neuron disease, which progressively paralysed his arms, and led to his release in 1988.
But it was out of the frying pan into the fire. Gwala was released into the midst of a civil war. His home-town, Pietermaritzburg, was becoming the epicentre of a bloody conflict that was to rage through the Midlands.
"Every weekend", I remember him saying in 1992, "we are burying comrades. You people in Johannesburg head offices and at the World Trade Centre don't understand what is really happening down there on the ground."
It was this direct, on-the-ground experience, as much as anything, that led to Gwala's deep scepticism about the negotiated transition process that began in 1990.
Last week I led the SACP delegation that received Irish Sinn Fein President, Gerry Adams. It happened to be the day on which comrade Harry died. We asked Gerry Adams if there was scepticism within their movement towards potential negotiations with the British. From our side we mentioned the example of our comrade Harry.
We made two basic points. Our first point was that, right or wrong, the sceptics are, invariably, amongst the most dedicated of one's comrades. They are speaking for tens of thousands of ordinary citizens.
And our second point to Adams was, therefore, those views must not be suppressed or marginalised. It is very important that debates within a liberation movement that is involved in negotiations are opened up. Ordinary members must be empowered, and when they are empowered the negotiators themselves are strengthened.
I like to believe that the SACP, in this respect, made a very important contribution to the negotiated transition in our country. If we did make such a contribution, it was only because we had comrades of the calibre of Joe Slovo and Harry Gwala who, as communists and loyal ANC members, were prepared to go toe-to-toe against each other in public debate. Neither of them settled into backroom manoeuvres against the other.
At the beginning of 1994, and with great reluctance, the SACP Central Committee suspended comrade Harry's membership of the Party for six months.
There had been serious allegations of sectarian behaviour in the Midlands region, and we had failed to secure comrade Gwala's co-operation in trying to get to the bottom of the allegations.
Some of the white liberal controlled media presented the suspension as a battle between "doves" and "hawks", "reformers" and "stalinists" in the SACP. It was nothing of the sort. Our move was not related in the least to comrade Harry's political views.
A life-time Communist, comrade Harry was deeply hurt by the suspension. But he was also a very proud individual, and so we were pleased, and relieved, when he began to co-operate with us in the latter part of last year. In December the suspension was lifted, although he did not stand for re-election to the CC in April this year.
He, like us, had become convinced that, in the war-zone conditions of the Midlands, he had been manipulated by certain individuals with dubious motives. The truth of all of this will, sooner or later, emerge more fully.
For our part, we are proud that Gwala died a Communist. Hamba kahle, comrade
Harry - teacher, tribune of the people, man of steel.