Tembisa struggle heroine Zodwa Mofokeng is honoured
Tembisa fallen heroine remembered
The Mofokeng family was invited to a presidential ceremony to receive an award on behalf of their late mother, Zodwa Mofokeng.
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Her daughter, Cynthia Kgafela, went to represent her late mother at a National Orders award ceremony on April 28.
“Our mother passed away in 1996. She was a struggle icon and she was very involved in community fights for justice,” said Kgafela.
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Listed in the National Order’s booklet, Zodwa Mofokeng was dedicated to politics all her life and led the community of Endulwini in the 80s to fight for the tarring of roads.
Mofokeng led a march against the bucket system, in which women took bucket toilets to the mayor to show him that they wanted sewerage systems.
Mofokeng, with other comrades, led the community of Ethafeni section to acquire houses by converting a local hostel into a place for family accommodation.
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Mofokeng led a march to the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court to stop police from killing people whenever there was a burial of a comrade and subsequently the killings stopped.
According to the National Order’s booklet, Mofokeng was in and out of prison and consequently never raised her children as she wished to.
She was involved in rent boycott campaigns and survived two assassinations by the apartheid government’s security branch.
She also, says the booklet, testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about police brutality against her and her husband.
It said that she was so traumatised on the day that she collapsed and was taken to hospital, where she passed on two weeks later, on 12 December 1996.
The President awarded Mofokeng with the Order of Luthuli in Silver for her relentless fight against the previous government’s oppression in South Africa.
This heroine defied oppression and advanced the cause of liberation and justice for all in South Africa.
“Zodwa Mofokeng’s legacy still lives on,” said Kgafela.
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