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The Congress of South African Trade Unions mourns the sad passing of one of our greatest national heroines, Albertina Sisulu. We send our condolences to her family and friends and all her thousands of comrades in the movement. We have lost one of the greatest and most loved figures in our national liberation struggle.

Mama Sisulu devoted her entire life to caring for others, as a nurse and midwife struggling to improve the lives of individuals in a racist environment, as a wife, mother and grandmother to a family which has produced an unprecedented number of great political leaders, and in the broad struggle for national, gender and class liberation of all South Africans.

In particular she played a pivotal role in the mobilisation of women into the liberation struggle, in the ANC Women’s League, which she joined in 1948, and in the founding of the Federation of South African Women in 1954. She was one of the leaders at the Congress of the People in 1955 and in the women’s march to the Union Buildings in 1956 to protest against pass laws for women.

"Women <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman> ,” she said in 1987 in Soweto, “are the people who are going to relieve us from all this oppression and depression. The rent boycott <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott> that is happening in Soweto <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soweto> now is alive because of the women. It is the women who are on the street committees, educating the people to stand up and protect each other."

She served in many, many positions, including Deputy President of the Women’s League and she led the United Democratic Front delegation that went overseas on an anti-apartheid mission in the late 1980s. She was also one of the founding trustees of the Labour Job Creation Trust, set up by the three trade union federations after the Presidential Jobs Summit in 1998.
She played a major role in the development, transformation and unification of the nursing profession and the health sector in general, and in the founding of the COSATU-affiliated union, the Democratic Nurses Union of South Africa (DENOSA). For this she was given a trophy at the historic International Nurses Congress held in Durban in 2009, in recognition of an outstanding contribution to nursing.

Mama Sisulu’s passing marks the departure of a generation of exceptional leaders, who represented all the best values of the ANC and the revolutionary movement, leaders who never put their own interests before those of the people. There has been no finer role model for succeeding generations.

She knew that joining the struggle was inviting arrest, torture and death for her and her family. Yet for the 25 years when her husband Walter was on Robben Island, she never flinched, never displayed any sign of weakness.

She was known as the ‘Mother of the Nation’ for good reason. She was the best possible example of what motherhood and caring for a family should mean. A recent report revealed that nine million South African children are living without their fathers, who are still living but taking no responsibility for their offspring. The old tradition under which fathers were obliged to pay compensation to the mothers of their children has virtually disappeared.

Those absent fathers should read the story of the Sisulu family’s love and care for each other and follow their fine example. They should ponder the words of Che Guevara, that “the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality... We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.”
Mama Sisulu was humble, self-effacing and loyal, yet also firm. For her right was right and wrong was wrong. We hope that these values will not die with her, as today we face a new, entirely opposite, culture of individualism and greed. Debates are no longer about issues of principle but angling for position and business opportunities.

Today’s leaders have a lot to learn from the inspirational example of Mama Sisulu and her generation of leaders. She will be greatly missed but certainly never forgotten. COSATU dips its banners to honour and respect a true icon on the struggle for freedom.