Dikgang Moseneke - Patriot and Partisan
The Terrace, Sandton Convention Centre, 25 July 2001
Master of Ceremonies
Peter Vundla, Executive Chair of African Merchant Bank,
Rob Dow, CEO
Business Leaders, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen
We gather here tonight to celebrate the personal achievements and the life-time contribution to freedom and justice of one of our country's most distinguished citizens: Dikgang Moseneke, patriot and partisan. We salute the magnificent sacrifice of the family that brought him to awareness as a child, the family that worried about him as a teenage detainee, and who supported him as a youthful prisoner. We extend our respect and gratitude to his wife Kabonina, his daughter Duduzile and his sons Sedise and Rabi, who, in Dikgang's own words, "have always spurred [him] on and given [him] all the love and support to achieve every time [he] takes on any task."
Dikgang's life reflects a robust commitment to the pursuit of justice and equality, freedom and prosperity, hope and vision, that has grown and matured into the numerous achievements, accolades, awards and professional appointments that most of us know Dikgang by. His personal experiences as a black man in South Africa, from the time of his birth in the year that apartheid became the official policy of the white government to our present proud non-racial democracy, have been the fountain that has fed his ambition and drive, guiding him constantly to hone his skills and intellect to the benefit of his people.
Dikgang grew up to the sounds of the penny whistle and the guitar. Lulled by the jazz and blues of Hugh Masekela, Dolly Rathebe, Miriam Makeba, and excited by the stories of Can Themba, Bloke Modisane and others in Drum magazine, Dikgang quickly showed the wit and intellect that have become his hallmarks. He learnt his mathematics from his father, the class teacher at Kilnerton High School in Pretoria, and developed a passion for ballroom dancing and tennis. His mates at the time, including Victor Moche and others, would be entertained by his portly antics on the tennis court, little knowing that he would develop into quite a star! His dancing skills we will witness shortly; but I have heard that only the unwary dare to wander onto a tennis court to challenge him and that Peter Vundla has convinced him, too, that he could become another Tiger Woods! He became a renowned motormouth, talking his way out of almost any situation, developing his skills of 'negotiation' long before business management course had heard of the idea! His days of learning and play, of childhood, took place in the ominous years of the 1950s and early 1960s. He breathed the rough air of the wood fire and heard the growl of the government's Saracens as they wound through township streets at the dead of night. But, it was the bullets of 21 March 1960 that pierced his consciousness as much as they left brothers and sisters dead in the dust of Sharpeville just down the road from school and Langa in far away Cape Town. For this 12 year old, std 6 pupil, like so many of his youthful compatriots at that time, life would henceforth never be the same.
Thrust into the cauldron of liberation Dikgang and his friends, cunningly using the front of a study circle, formed a small group called the Bushbucks spent time in the forests around Kilnerton suprising hapless white hikers and picnickers and beating them up fearlessly in the charged atmosphere of the time before melting into the undergrowth again. The Silverton police were quick to visit the young men, eager for their own purposes to identify the culprits. At the same time the young Moseneke listened more attentively to his father's political views. With his friends, he drew on the wisdom of many local activists from both the ANC and the PAC, including Joe Nhlanhla, the former Minister of Intelligence, Tommy Mohajane and Moss Masemola. Antics in the forest developed into political action, and Dikgang joined the PAC at the age of 14 through the avenue of the African Students Union. With their chemistry lessons from school behind them, they took to experimenting with explosives, in the same way that was happening all over South Africa at the time. I recall sitting in Berlin in 1978, paging through the Congress newspaper, New Age, and stumbling upon an early 1960s article about political activism at Kilnerton High School that sported a photo of Dikgang and Victor Moche.
From youthful mischief makers, the youngsters soon developed into comrades-in-arms, participating in the furious debates after the banning of the PAC and ANC about the way forward, coming quickly to the patriotic conviction that the armed struggle was the only option left at that time to bring the madmen in Pretoria to their senses. It was not long, however, that the long arm of the apartheid lawmakers stretched out and grabbed Dikgang, detaining him in 1963 and sentencing him to 10 years in jail for conspiracy and sabotage. And so, his enrolment at the University on Robben Island began, and he left as Dikgang Moseneke, BA [English and political science], and later read the B.Juris, and LL.B degrees though Unisa. Immediately upon his release he was served with a 5 year banning and house arrest order and so he had to wait 5 painful years until he could be admitted as an attorney in 1978.
From that time, he plunged into a legal career that saw him devoting time to political trials of the PAC, ANC and AZAPO comrades, helping to establish the BLA and Nadel, rising to the Bar in Pretoria in 1983 and elevated to SC in 1993. Whilst working as a highly respected lawyer, he ably combined his belief in justice with the needs of reality and worked in the political underground of the 1980s, serving on the internal structures of the PAC before the ban on organizations was lifted in February 1990. That was about the time I met Dikgang when I was still a political prsisoner on Robben Island, leading a 12-day hunger strike. Dikgang, together with the present President of the Constitutional Court Arthur Chaskalson, Minister of Justice Dullah Omar, Kathy Satchwell and Bulelani Ngcuka, were our legal representatives.
After the unbanning, Dikgang was elected as the PAC's second deputy president at their Congress in 1990 and played a prominent role in the deliberations and operation of the Patriotic Front formed between the PAC and ANC in 1991. He served on the Technical Committee that drafted the Interim Constitution for our democratic country and then took on the responsibility as Deputy Chairman of the IEC where, inter alia, he played a major role in ensuring that elections took place as smoothly as the situation allowed in KwaZulu-Natal. A tough mandate that he fulfilled in a way that has allowed the peace process in that troubled province to develop and grow with time.
His activity to promote and defend human rights took him to the USA for a short time as well in the 1980s where he combined academic skills and his legal knowledge to be both visiting Law Professor at Columbia, New York, as well as serving as a legal counsel for the NAACP Legal Defence Fund in New York.
Master of Ceremonies, comrades and friends, I have spent some time reflecting on Dikgang's earlier years for a reason. It is quite clear that the person we know today, whom the legal and business communities both here in South Africa and elsewhere respect highly, is an individual who though shaped by the circumstances in which he found himself, has himself played an active part in determining the role he needs to play to bring about change. No excuses, no lapsing into the comfort zone, no pretense at doing things whilst sitting on his hands. These are the characteristics of the true role model, and as such Dikgang is part of a group of people in South Africa who we as South Africans can be truly proud to call brother and patriot.
His recent professional career in the business community, and particularly the black business community, through the work he has accomplished at NAIL, Metlife, AMB, and his tremendous contribution at Telkom, has exemplified the characteristics of what black economic empowerment is all about. He is respected across the whole spectrum of boardrooms, from large companies to emerging enterprises, and this respect has grown as a result of the institutional and operational guidance, knowledge and integrity that he has shown at all times. His concern for the large enterprises is built alongside, for example, Telkom's record of increasing dramatically the number of black companies in its procurement programme. He is not happy just to be appointed to positions of authority and power, but rolls up his sleaves and gets down to business, acknowledging that there are no soft options worth pursuing, only challenges.
Dikgang now formally takes leave of the business community to re-enter the legal realm as Acting Judge of the High Court. This move occurs at a time when senior judges and others have expressed deep concern at the potential harm to our justice system as highly proficient people leave the judiciary to pursue other paths. Many are leaving reluctantly as the pressures of office build up. Into this context, Dikgang steps with the same type of commitment and dedication that we have seen him display right through his life. It is a highly symbolic gesture on the one hand, but should also serve as a fine example of a person moving into an area where his skills are now more needed perhaps than in the business community that he has helped and assisted over the past few years. For that, South Africa is appreciative and we in government believe that the judiciary will be strengthened with his appointment and our country's extraordinarily high judicial reputation will be further enhanced.
People everywhere celebrate with song and dance. Africa is no exception to the rule, and our culture urges us from an early age to enjoy the movement of body and spirit, to make music with voice, and hands, and with anything under the sun that we can tap out a rhythm, a tune, a sound. Music represents for us the eternal movement of human civilization, of individual people going about their tasks to survive, to build, to grow and to contribute to the greater benefit of us all. The humble pennywhistle, symbol and sound of an age gone by from where many of us here tonight grew up, reminds us of the art of coordination and cooperation between people: each pipe adds to the richness of the many. When he received his Honorary Degree of Doctor of Economics from the University of Natal earlier this year, Dikgang remarked in response to the laudation he received: "All great edifices of the world are the product of collective and unrelenting effort". Let us all remember that; let us all celebrate his success and contribution with that in mind as we wish Dikgang and his family prosperity and well-being in the future.
I thank you.