Sisulu celebrates 90th birthday
2002-05-18 16:50
Allan Seccombe and Zandile Nkuta
Johannesburg - Walter Sisulu, frail and bent, sat quietly at his 90th birthday party on Saturday as Nelson Mandela and President Thabo Mbeki lauded him for a life devoted to casting the yoke of apartheid off South Africa.
Sisulu smiled and graciously accepted a stream of well-wishers, who wanted to kiss him or shake his hand, as he sat comfortably in a deep leather chair that gives massages - a present from the African National Congress (ANC).
Before Sisulu received his presents, former president Mandela and Mbeki told nearly 1 000 invited guests of the role Sisulu played in organising resistance to apartheid, his treason trial in 1964, his imprisonment and his release in 1989.
Sisulu was the first person employed by the ANC and served as its secretary-general.
Convicted of political sabotage and revolution after the ANC decided the white-minority apartheid regime could only be removed by armed struggle, Sisulu and other leaders of the party faced the death penalty but refused to plead for mercy.
Mandela, whose policies of reconciliation soothed a country fraught with racial tensions after the first democratic elections in 1994, paid homage to Sisulu as a mentor.
"He knew and taught us that wisdom comes from sharing insights and listening and learning from each other," Mandela said, referring affectionately to Sisulu by his clan name of Xhamela.
"Some of us here became president of the ANC and government but Xhamela always had a position higher than that...He pushed forward Thabo and myself and he always stayed in the background," the 83-year-old Mandela said.
Poetic praises
In a poetic address, Mbeki sang Sisulu's praises, saying he "taught us that we should live our lives gently, with fire, and always with hope."
The snowy-haired patriarch, who is head of five generations, has spent a busy week at parties and speeches in his honour.
The party was attended by dozens in the hierarchy of the ruling ANC - many of whom carried large wrapped gifts.
Mac Maharaj, who has known Sisulu since 1964 and spent 12 years in a prison on Robben Island, said the ANC veteran was also a mentor to him and always had a ready smile in prison.
"But his softness must never be mistaken for lack of determination. He had a way of maintaining our firmness with a sense of consideration and sensitivity, a supreme diplomat who influenced our struggle greatly," Maharaj said.
Sisulu, who is struggling with Parkinson's disease, was helped by his wife of 57 years, Albertina, and son Max to cut a giant birthday cake after being brought in a wheelchair to a low stage surrounded by gifts.
Renowned author and the 1991 winner of the Nobel literature prize, Nadine Gordimer - a card-carrying member of the ANC - said Sisulu had brought hope, even in the darkest days of apartheid.
"He is a great hero, one of those extraordinary people who made it always worth while to live in this country, even in the worst of times of oppression when we felt that change was so far off. Sisulu and people like Mandela always made one feel that change and justice was coming," she said.