Journey into lives of activist family

• Published date: 19 May 2021
• Publication title: Post

Kathrada had said: “The sad thing is that while we celebrate their lives, we are not doing anything to remember their legacy. Open any book today and look for their names and what they have done. You won't find it. And that is the duty of academics, historians – to research, to record, and publish the lives of these great people.”

The scholarship on political activists has expanded considerably since Kathrada’s appeal. However, there is a tendency to valorise a heroic masculinity while underplaying the political work of women and the thousands of ordinary activists who made sacrifices to end white rule (Unterhalter 2000, 159).

This is not unusual since biographies, in general, have tended to perpetuate “the great-man theories of history” or at least focus on “subjects worthy of biographies” (Lepore 2001, 151) and tend to be hero-worshipping and teleological (Hyslop 2010, 109).

This biography of an activist family makes an essential contribution in recovering the involvement of not so ordinary people in the anti-apartheid struggle. Given the concern expressed by Kathrada, it is apposite that the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation should have published Thambi Naidoo and Family.

Cometh a research project, cometh the person. Ismail Vadi was ideally suited for this mammoth undertaking with both academic and political pedigree. He holds a Master’s degree in history from the University of the Witwatersrand and he has taught history and English at secondary school level.

In the 1980s, he was an activist in the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) and the United Democratic Front (UDF). He was also a founder member of the Lenasia Youth League and the Progressive Teachers' League. Vadi was the national vice-president of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU), and, in the early 1990s, he lectured in the Education Department at Wits University. As the ANC turned from liberation movement to governing political party, Vadi made his presence felt in post-apartheid politics. He served as an ANC Member of Parliament (National Assembly) and as Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Roads and Transport in Gauteng in the post-apartheid period.

Vadi has the advantage of an insider’s perspective as he was an activist who lived through some of the activities and events covered in this study and has authored several works on the anti-apartheid struggle: The Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter Campaign (1995); Images of ANC Politics in Lenasia (2004); The Congress of...