By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) Deputy President Paul Mashatile delivered the inaugural Steve Tshwete Memorial Lecture at the War Memorial in King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape.
Mashatile said Tshwete’s legacy ought to be preserved.
“We are going to do an inaugural lecture today about the life and times of comrade Steve Tshwete so that we can teach the younger generation of this important history.
“The ANC launched a foundation course we are teaching our members about the history of the organisation. The leaders of the organisation but more importantly it’s values what does it stand for which is to serve our people.”
Respected and feared in ANC circles as incorruptible, totally committed and fiercely loyal to the party leadership, Tshwete was appointed as President Nelson Mandela’s sports minister after South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994. He was a striking success, advocating reconciliation and non-racialism.
Earlier, he had inspired anti-apartheid activists; now, as leader of the national assembly, he was a formidable parliamentarian who won the respect of his opponents.
Respected and feared in ANC circles as incorruptible, totally committed and fiercely loyal to the party leadership, Tshwete was appointed as President Nelson Mandela’s sports minister after South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994. He was a striking success, advocating reconciliation and non-racialism. Earlier, he had inspired anti-apartheid activists; now, as leader of the national assembly, he was a formidable parliamentarian who won the respect of his opponents.
Tshwete was born at Springs, on the Witwatersrand, in what was then Transvaal province, now known as Gauteng. He was educated in the Eastern Cape, first at Peelton village, near Kingwilliamstown, and then at the Forbes Grant secondary school, Ginsberg location, King Williamstown, matriculating at Welsh high school, East London. Studying at night, he graduated in philosophy and English from the University of South Africa. A schoolboy rugby player, he became a sports administrator, actively opposing the Nationalist government’s imposition of apartheid in sport.
He joined the ANC in the late 1950s and, when it was banned, went underground, becoming a leader of the miliary wing, Umkhonto ze Siswe (Spear of the Nation). In 1963, he was captured by the security police and jailed for 15 years.
The deputy president has also assured ANC supporters the party is pushing back against the DA’s demands to have certain clauses of the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act scrapped.
“We will continue to invest in the promotion of our indigenous languages. It is in this regard that we are convinced that we in government were correct to get the Bela Bill passed by parliament. There are people who want to remove it. I was reading on social media as I was coming here that there is an agreement somewhere that some of the clauses in the act should be scrapped. We are saying no, we cannot exclude the clauses,” Mashatile said.
Solidarity Movement, which protested with the DA against the act, on Thursday said there was a settlement for the disputed provisions not to be implemented.
Mashatile, however, disputed this saying the government has not reached an agreement regarding proposed exclusion of Bela Act provisions.
The president appointed me to chair the clearing house on behalf of all parties so that we can fix this thing. Other people are saying, ‘language and admissions are not important, we will see to it some other time.’ No, we want it now. It must be sorted now,” he said.