WeeklySA_AdminHONOUR: Liberation struggle matriarch Gertrude Shope credited for her critical role in laying the foundations of a post-apartheid democratic legislature…
By WSAM Reporter
President Cyril Ramaphosa will tomorrow deliver the eulogy at the special official funeral of the late ANC stalwart Gertrude Shope, who passed away last week, at the age of 99.
President Ramaphosa has declared the funeral to be conducted in line with protocols of the Special Official Funeral Category 1.
The late Ma Shope, who served the nation as an educator, freedom fighter, trade unionist and Member of Parliament, will be honoured with a funeral ceremony that will incorporate military honours.
Shope was born in Johannesburg, but grew up in Zimbabwe. She was trained as a teacher, and went on to teach in Natal and Soweto.
When she was 29 years old she decided to join the African National Congress (ANC), and soon afterwards left teaching as part of the campaign to boycott Bantu Education. She moved onto the Coronation Hospital and later began to work with training women in crafts and with youth rehabilitation.
From 1958 to 1966 Shope was the chairperson of the Central Western Jabavu Branch of the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW). In the late 1960s she was provincial secretary for the FEDSAW.
According to her biography on SA History Online, Shope got to know Bram Fischer very well, and in 1966 the ANC convinced her to leave South Africa and join her husband, Mark Shope, in exile. While in exile, Gertrude and her husband moved around a lot as representatives of the ANC. They lived in Prague, Botswana, Tanzania, Czechoslovakia, Zambia and Nigeria.
While in exile, from 1970-1971, Shope was secretary to the head of the ANC’s Woman’s Section, Florence Mophosho. Together these two women started the publication of Voice of the Women. Shope then became the ANC’s chief representative in Lusaka and in 1981 was promoted to head of the Women’s Section, and she became a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC in 1985. As head, she led the Women’s Section to the End of the Decade Conference in Nairobi in 1985, and was secretary of the ANC mission to Nigeria. She held this position until 1991.
In 1991 Shope was elected president of the ANC’s Women’s League, a position she held until 1993. She worked together with Albertina Sisulu in convening the ANC’s Internal Leadership Corps Task Force from 1990-1991.
In 1994 Shope became a member of parliament in the Government of National Unity. Honouring the ANC veteran, the Presiding Officers of Parliament described her as a principled and pioneering woman, a fearless voice for justice, and a towering figure whose life embodied the spirit of South Africa’s long and painful struggle for freedom.
“Following the historic democratic breakthrough and South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, Ma-Shope became part of the first generation of Members of Parliament in a free and democratic South Africa,” the parliamentarians in the statement.
“In this historic role, she was instrumental in transforming Parliament from a symbol of oppression into a people’s institution rooted in transparency, inclusivity, and constitutional values. She helped lay the foundations of a democratic legislature that would reflect the will of all South Africans, contributing to the building of laws and institutions anchored in human dignity, equality, and justice”.
They added that she was among the first women to mobilise against the injustices of the brutal, racist apartheid regime. From the early days of resistance, she stood on the frontlines, participating in protest marches and galvanising communities against the atrocities committed by the oppressive minority government.
In its tribute to Ma Shope, the Congress of SA Trade Unions reflected on the great personal sacrifice that commitment to the struggle entailed. She quit her teaching career, her source of income, as part of the campaign to boycott Bantu Education.
One of the highlights in her illustrious life was her landmark speech at the meeting of the Special Committee against Apartheid in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Struggle of Women in South Africa and Namibia in August 1981.
An excerpt from the speech at that meeting – a eulogy to women of the world, still resonates today, if not more relevant: “As mothers, who bring life to this world, we feel highly concerned at the fate to which that same life is subjected: hardship and cold-blooded murder in many countries which have become hotbeds of conflict.
Our duty is to protect life, because it is very valuable. For without life there can be no development in the world”.
So apt and timeless quote which, though uttered 44 years ago, is still particularly relevant during these troubled times ushering an emerging world order that is certain about only one thing – an unguaranteed future.
