Hon Speaker, hon members of this august House, on behalf of the ANC I want to join the previous speakers in saluting the contributions of the late Joe Matthews, Gaobakwe, as he was better known in Alice before he went elsewhere. That little town of Alice, one of the most beautiful in the Eastern Cape, has two landmarks. One is a house in Gaga Street, and that is where Joe grew up. To this day it is called the Matthews House because the municipality decided to retain it as the property of the Matthews'. The other landmark is a small church in Ntselamanzi, a Presbyterian Church called John Knox Bokwe, named after the grandfather of the late Joe Matthews.
These were not by accident retained under those labels, but were rather a product of the contribution that those families have made towards the liberation and the formation of the mindset of nationalism, African nationalism, in South Africa. Bhuti Joe was born of a very great pedigree of African nationalists and academics. John Knox Bokwe preceded the ANC in the 19th century already, in discussing very important issues of Africanism, African nationalism and nonracialism. This debate was recorded already in 1857 when he was still a student at Lovedale Mission.
John Knox Bokwe had two very important siblings, umama ka bhuti Joe, makhulu Freda, as well Dr Bokwe, the younger of the Bokwe academics. Therefore, it cannot surprise us that at a very young age, this brilliant South African, gentleman, academic, intellectual, man of great integrity, and indeed this patriot and nationalist, had to steep himself deep into the well of political thought and political activism.
Although he was born in Durban and went to school at Adams College, at a very early age his parents came to Alice, where he went to school at Lovedale Mission and the University of Fort Hare. He met great people there. Robert Sobukwe was the president of his student representative council when he was at Fort Hare. Of course, he met Chief Buthelezi, and he met other people - brilliant minds of our liberation movement - who were participants in the Youth League of the ANC.
Brother Joe was also a founding member of the Youth League together with the likes of utata Sisulu, utata Madiba and a whole range of others. But then he met with O R Tambo, and he also met with other very brilliant analysts and political thought framers of our country. It is during this time that he, like many other young minds, got quickly absorbed in the leadership structures of the revolutionary movement. You will know that Brother Joe succeeded Madiba in 1952. When the latter had to step down from the leadership of the African National Congress Youth League he became the next chairperson in 1952-53, in order to allow Madiba to go and lead the defiance campaign.
He also served in the various levels of the ANC senior party. He was living in New Brighton at one stage; he ended up in the executive committee of the then New Brighton branch under the chairpersonship of Oom Ray, the late Raymond Mhlaba. He was involved in politics together with the robust revolutionaries and stalwarts of our organisations, including the likes of Raymond Mhlaba, Vuyisile Mini, Nangoza Jebe and all those people. I was telling one comrade here that if you think our conferences are robust, you should have attended the meetings of the ANC at T C White or Emakhaleni in Port Elizabeth and see what robustness and being physical meant in the debates and activities of the ANC.
Boet Joe was also a veteran of the revolutionary movement. He joined the SA Communist Party at a young age and grew to become a member of its central committee. He was very active in the drafting of the Freedom Charter in 1955, active in the promulgation of the programmes of the defiance campaign and, of course, he was also very active in drafting some key documents of our revolution, one of which is a seminal strategy and tactics in Morogoro in 1969. That document continues to be the anchor of our political thought and direction.
South Africa has lost a very revered activist. South Africa has lost a very gentle person, gentle giant if you like, because Brother Joe was very gentle, and he spoke like an angel, but when the occasion arrived, he could be robust and very combative in his debating stance. When he came back to South Africa in 1991, he attended a conference in Pietermaritzburg. Because he was not a delegate, he could not remain in the conference. He was assigned the status of an observer, together with Allan Boesak, by the way. That decision was taken at the same time for both of them.
He joined the IFP, because he thought that if nobody was looking in his direction, he could still be a very important member of the African transformation machinery. It didn't matter what label he carried on his back, such was the man. Indeed, in 1994 he came to this Parliament, and he sat there where hon Shilowa is sitting. That was his seat. He used to sit there and debate with us in this House.
Hon Speaker, we always whispered amongst our ranks in the ANC about how this man has remained an ANC activist par excellence. He could not cut his umbilical cord from the ANC. In word and in thought, he continued to give that kind of guidance in communities and in community development initiatives.
Comrade Joe Matthews will be buried, I do not know by which organisation, because Joe Matthews, you see ... [Laughter.] People who do not know these things say "by his family". It does not work like that in the revolution, but I believe it will be a "toenadering" [rapprochement] of the IFP and ANC, the parties that he was a member of until his death. We salute his contribution. Of course, until his death, Comrade Joe Matthews - and this is not a claim - was not a member of the SACP. He left the SACP in 1973. I believe that this is the time when we will begin to come together and bury a freedom fighter who is a product of our organisations, who was a beacon in the direction which our people should follow.
Joe Matthews is not a loss to any political party; he is a loss to South Africa in general. He is a loss to Africa as a continent, because that is where his contribution was always felt throughout his lifetime. We dip our banners down for his family and with his family, with his friends and broader family, the Bokwes, the Maqubelas and all of them. It is a very big family, by the way, the extended Matthews family. May his soul rest in peace. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.