AFRICAN NATIONAL Congress (ANC) stalwart and anti-apartheid icon Albertina Sisulu passed away at home on Thursday night, aged 92, while watching the evening news on television, her family said yesterday.
Mrs Sisulu was the widow of ANC leader Walter Sisulu, who died in her arms in 2003, and a friend and mentor to former South African president Nelson Mandela.
A political heavyweight in her own right, she was active in the ANC Women’s League and was arrested and detained many times during the fight against apartheid.
According to family members Mrs Sisulu, who was said to be in good health for her age, was sitting at home in Johannesburg’s Linden suburb watching the news with her two adult grandsons when she died in her chair.
Although a nurse and midwife , she was best known for her commitment to education and the ANC, and was said to have tutored and mentored many of the party’s current leaders.
“Even in the struggle if people don’t know what they are fighting for it is useless,” she said after the fall of the apartheid system.
“We must educate our women because often they suffer the most – and their children with them . . . If we all knew what was really important, we would just need to shout once.” As news of her demise was broadcast yesterday, tributes to the woman affectionately known as “MaSisulu” began to pour in from across the country’s racial divide.
Her compatriots in the ANC were the first to offer condolences to her family. “MaSisulu epitomised the struggles of the poor, the women and the disenfranchised . . . She embodied grace and humility,” the ANC said, adding that not only had the Sisulu family lost a mother, but the country had lost an irreplaceable leader.
Opposition Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said Mrs Sisulu symbolised “all that is strong and good” about South Africa, and she “showed extraordinary fortitude, courage and perseverance in the most difficult times”.