Hamba kahle to struggle veteran principal

• Author: Lillian Amos lillian.amos@acm.co.za
• Published date: 11 January 2023
• Publication title: Southern Mail

Mr Liebenberg, who was described as a giant who “stood out head and shoulders among all”, died on Saturday January 7 and many have paid tribute to the “principled comrade”

His daughter, Lenine Liebenberg, said the tributes streaming in on social media from his colleagues, friends, past pupils, and acquaintances attest to his positive impact on countless lives and echoed the stories she listened to from her father throughout her life.

She said their accounts describe a man respected and loved in the public sphere.

“My account, as a loving daughter, is of a man who enjoyed the outdoors. He was always surrounded by dogs – whether his or strays, who recognised his kindness, and trees. He was always trying to grow something or make something or improve something.

“He was always stopping to speak to someone he knew or who knew him, anywhere. His questions were thought-provoking, and his knowledge was vast. His lifestyle was simple,” said Ms Liebenberg.

The dedicated educator grew up in Lansdowne and attended Livingstone High School. Fellow educator Donald Neumann said Mr Liebenberg’s potential was evident for all to see at age of 13 and he garnered the respect of his teachers and peers equally.

“Allan attributed his political awakening to the killing of Imam Haroon in 1969. The killing of the Imam at the behest of the Apartheid government while in detention had a profound influence on the community and Allan.”

He took up the role as chairperson of the Student Representative Council at Livingstone

and led many student demonstrations and boycotts against the Apartheid government.

Mr Neumann worked closely with Mr Liebenberg and said he was like a brother to him during high school. He said Mr Liebenberg was routinely harassed by the security police at home and school.

“He would regularly receive lashes from the security police at school and be detained.”

After matriculating from Livingstone High School, he enrolled to study teaching at the University of the Western Cape and was elected onto the SRC in his first year of studies – along with other comrades, such as Mackie Kleinschmidt, Ben Palmer Louw and George Webster.

“They were under constant police surveillance and harassment but stood steadfast in their principles of non-racialism,” Mr Neumann said. He said that during this time, Mr Liebenberg was detained more than 10 times.

Graduating from UWC he obtained his first teaching post at Lotus High School but stayed active in the struggle.

As a result he was...