President Cyril Ramaphosa has described the late Ma Gertrude Shope as a pillar of the nation, a matriarch of the revolution, and a torchbearer of women’s emancipation.
President Ramaphosa delivered a moving eulogy at her Special Official Funeral held at the Great Hall of the University of the Witwatersrand on Saturday.
Ma Shope, who passed away last week at the age of 99 at her home in Gauteng, was laid to rest with honours befitting her immense contributions to South Africa’s liberation and to the global fight for justice and gender equality.
President Ramaphosa paid tribute to Shope’s life of commitment to the struggle against apartheid and the advancement of women’s rights.
“We are here to bed farewell to Mama Gertrude Shope, Isithwalandwe, freedom fighter, trade unionist, icon of the women’s movement.
“Her passing comes less than a week after we buried Cde Lungi Mngaga-Gcabashe, the Deputy President of the ANC Women’s League. To have lost two women leaders – izintsika (pillars) – in such close succession is a great loss. And yet, even amidst our grief we take comfort in the legacies they left behind,” the President said.
President Ramaphosa said Ma Gertrude will not only be remembered by her name but her legacy that she left behind.
“We gather not just to remember the name Getrude Shope. We gather to honour a life that helped to shape our country’s democracy.
“Mama Getrude Shope’s life is and was intertwined in the fabric of our of democracy. Hers was a life that was quietly and unshakably committed to the struggle for our people’s liberation,” the President said.
A former teacher who became an outspoken opponent of Bantu Education in the 1950s, Shope joined the African National Congress (ANC) and played a pivotal role in organising women against the apartheid state.
She was among the leaders who mobilised the historic 1956 Women’s March to the Union Buildings, helping galvanise more than 20000 women to demand an end to the pass laws.
“To witness the dehumanising of black children in the classroom struck her to the core. She refused to accept the dictates of her role to impart inferior education that prepared black children for little more than a life of menial labour,” said the President.
Forced into exile in 1966, Shope worked across Africa and the globe to build solidarity for the anti-apartheid movement. As head of the ANC Women’s Section in exile and later President of the ANC Women’s League, she pushed for the centrality of gender equality in the liberation struggle and in the country’s post-apartheid constitutional framework.
Quoting from an interview Shope gave in the early 1980s, the President reminded the nation of her enduring message: “We are not declaring war on men… men are also victims. Together, men and women must change their attitudes to each other.”
Women’s rights
The President acknowledged the progress South Africa has made in advancing women’s rights, noting that the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report recently referred to the country as a “beacon of hope.”
“This progress was not achieved by chance. Gertrude Shope and others made it happen. She birthed and mothered it. She nurtured it with discipline, wisdom and responsibility.
“This progress is the result of deliberate policies implemented by successive democratic governments since 1994,” he said.
However, the President also cautioned that despite South Africa having made progress in advancing women’s rights, persistent inequalities, violence against women, and economic disparities continue to threaten that progress.
“Women are still more likely to be poor than men. Women are still more likely to be unemployed than men. Women are the primary victims of intimate partner violence, abuse, rape and other forms of sexual violence.
“Ma Shope’s life’s work is not yet complete. It is up to us to take forward women’s struggles for full equality, for freedom from violence, and for the right to live in security, comfort and peace. And like Ma Shope said all those years ago, this is not a struggle that must be waged by women alone. Men must be at the frontlines of the fight for gender equality,”the President said.
Ma Shope’s legacy, the President said, endures not only in institutions like the ANC Women’s League and the Gertrude Shope Peacebuilding Programme, but also in the daily activism of countless women and girls across the country.
In closing, President Ramaphosa repeated Ma Shope’s call to action: “The time for women to be found in the kitchen is long past. Let us, together with our menfolk, correct the wrongs and ills of our society.”