tephanie Kemp, South African anti-apartheid activist and pioneer, mourned by the ANC after passing away at age 81. Images: Facebook/Patric Tariq Mellet/Stephanie Kemp.
Anti-apartheid activist Stephanie Kemp remembered as fearless pioneer by ANC
‘The freedoms South Africans enjoy today are as a result of Comrade Stephanie’s unflinching fight against apartheid monstrosity,’ said the ANC.
tephanie Kemp, South African anti-apartheid activist and pioneer, mourned by the ANC after passing away at age 81. Images: Facebook/Patric Tariq Mellet/Stephanie Kemp.
The African National Congress (ANC) mourned the passing of anti-apartheid activist Stephani Kemp in a statement on Saturday, 11 March.
READ: Anti-apartheid stalwart Stephanie Kemp dies at 81
KEMP DIES AT 81
As previously reported, Kemp died on Friday at the age of 81. Her family made the announcement in a short message.
The ANC described Kemp as a veteran and fearless pioneer of the liberation struggle in South Africa.
“As an Afrikaner, during years of apartheid South Africa, Comrade Stephanie jettisoned privilege and comfort for the humanity and freedoms of all people. It was her quest for justice, equality, a non-racial, and non-sexist South Africa that will keep her name inscribed in the collective memory of South Africa’s valiant leaders who trampled darkness and despair with goodness and light,” said the party.
POLITICAL ACTIVISM
Kemp, a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) before the ANC, went into exile and worked underground in the SACP and ANC’s anti-apartheid movement abroad in the 1960s after spending time in prison.
She returned to South Africa in 1990 after the unbanning of the ANC.
“The freedoms South Africans enjoy today are as a result of Comrade Stephanie’s unflinching fight against apartheid monstrosity. She stood obdurate in the harsh face of apartheid brutality in quest for an egalitarian society devoid of oppression of one by another. The ANC and the people of South Africa are indebted to Comrade Stephanie’s unwavering commitment to the liberation struggle and her vision for a democratic South Africa,” said the ANC.
Kemp worked as a physiotherapist in Alexandra for about seven years before she took up a lecturer position at the University of Durban-Westville.
She was actively involved in ANC politics in Johannesburg and was elected chairperson of the Hillbrow-Berea branch and served on the Gauteng Working Committee of the SACP and as Gender Coordinator for the Communist Party in KZN.
RESIGNATION FROM ANC AND SACP
Kemp resigned from both parties in 2008. According to SA History Online, the crux of her resignation lay in the following statement, “discussion, debate and Party work, were replaced by a systematic campaign of vilification that became increasingly strident in stirring up hatred toward the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) in general, and the ANC/State President (Mr Thabo Mbeki) in particular.”
She reportedly became despondent after seeing increasing factionalism and a culture of corruption in the Tripartite Alliance (ANC, SACP and COSATU).
In his tribute to Kemp, History and Heritage Activist Patric Tariq Mellet said he worked with her in an SACP cell in the UK in 1981.
Mellet claimed, like himself, Kemp resigned from the ANC and SACP in disgust “after the 2008 palace coup.”
“The enemy within the liberation movement had captured it and destroyed it from the inside out. It was a sad and painful saga for many who gave their whole lives to fight for freedom, justice and People Power,” wrote Mellet.
Mellet said Kemp’s life and struggle was guided by a philosophy that empowered the poor to transform their own lives, which was underpinned by “revolutionary ethics and a moral compass” that have evaporated within the ANC and Communist Party.
