Moses Mabhida Funeral: Three Streams of the Liberation Struggle

Moses Mabhida Funeral: Three Streams of the Liberation Struggle Forty years ago, on 29 March 1986, Moses Mabhida, the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (ANC) and Vice-President of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), was buried in Maputo, Mozambique. At the funeral, Mozambican President Samora Machel said the following, “Dear Comrades, the whole of Africa, of progressive mankind and all revolutionaries bow in homage to the personality and exemplary life of Moses Mabhida. Moses Mabhida has bequeathed us his example as a determined fighter for the ideals of freedom, justice, equality, democracy, socialism and peace. We know him thus since the start of our national liberation struggle. Moses Mabhida was an elder brother to us. Patiently and modestly, he passed on to us his long experience of struggle. His advice was always valuable. “In all his dealings with us”, Machel continued, “he displayed his simple, modest and fraternal nature and showed his love of mankind. We remember the long nights when under the starlight we shared the dreams of the future we were building in combat. What would our countries be like. How would our children grow up. How would our people’s aspirations be achieved. His vision of the future revealed the profound humanism that underlay his thinking. In the most difficult moments we went through together he radiated alw