Moses Mabhida
Moses Mbheki Mncane Mabhida (born October 14, 1923 in Thornville near Pietermaritzburg , † March 8, 1986 in Maputo ) was a South African trade union leader and politician.
Life
Mabhida was the son of poor parents who were driven from their land. Due to the family's financial situation, he attended school up to the 9th grade and began to work as a waiter and in a factory in 1942 . Through his father he had early contact with socialist ideals and with the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), a trade union in South Africa, so that in 1942 he joined the Communist Party of South Africa . Because of the ban on many unions between 1952 and 1953, Mabhiba went underground and devoted himself entirely to working for the union.
In the following years he organized the labor force in the province of Natal and built up the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), whose first vice-president he was elected in 1955. From the mid-1950s he also worked as secretary of the ANC in Pietermaritzburg, where he was in close contact with Albert John Luthuli . After the declaration of a state of emergency because of the unrest surrounding the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, Mabhida was sent abroad. Until 1963 he represented the ANC in Prague and organized international protest rallies with the World Trade Union Confederation . Because of his election to the executive board of the ANC in October 1962, Oliver Tambo convinced him to return to South Africa and help set up Umkhonto we Sizwe . After completing military training, Mabhida became a political officer for new recruits, later commander of the Umkhonto.
In 1969 Mabhida was re-elected to the executive board, in addition to the Revolutionary Council and the Politico-Military Council of the ANC. He built up the security and intelligence service of the ANC and in 1979 became a member of the Politico-Military Strategy Commission and General Secretary of the Communist Party. Mabhida was a supporter of Marxism-Leninism and the Soviet Union at the time . In the following years, on his travels through Africa, he met Samora Machel , the leader of the Frelimo , with whom he was a close friend until the end of his life.
During a stay in Havana in 1985, Mabhida suffered a heart attack ; after an illness he died in Maputo in 1986 and was buried there. The funeral speech was given by Samora Machel. In 2006 the exhumed remains were transferred to South Africa by a delegation from the province of KwaZulu-Natal and buried again on December 2, 2006 in Slangspruit near Pietermaritzburg in the presence of the then President Thabo Mbeki .
Awards
- Supreme Counselor of Order of the Baobab , awarded posthumously in 2002
- Durban football stadium is renamed Moses Mabhida Stadium
Web links
- About Moses Mabhida ( Memento from February 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) on the pages of the Soccer World Cup 2010
- South African History Online: Moses Mabhida . on www.sahistory.org.za (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Government of South Africa: T Mbeki to attend reburial of M Mabhida, 2 Dec . from www.gov.za (English) accessed on March 4, 2018
- ^ The Presidency: Moses Mabhida . from www.thepresidency.gov.za (English) accessed on November 8, 2011
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mabhida, Moses |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mabhida, Moses Mbheki Mncane (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | South African union leader and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 14, 1923 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Thornville near Pietermaritzburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 8, 1986 |
| Place of death | Maputo |