Honours to Helen Suzman, South Africa

                                               

In Parliament, late 1950s

Wiki

Helen Gavronsky (1917-2009) was born in South Africa, her Lithuanian parents having arrived with thousands of Jewish migrants from the Baltic states, desperate for peace. My hero in 1966 was by then called Helen Suzman, the bravest person on whom I might have aimed to model myself. 

Helen studied economics & statistics at Witwatersrand Uni. At 20 she married Dr Moses Suzman and had 2 children, before returning to university as a lecturer in 1944. She gave up academia for politics, being elected to Parliament in 1953 as a member of United Party. She moved to the liberal Progressive Party in 1959 and represented her district as her party's sole member, the sole parliament­arian clearly opposed to Apartheid, from 1961-74.

Progressive Party's House caucus in 1960, prior 1961 election that left Suzman

as the sole parliamentarian opposed to apartheid for 13 years. Wiki

The ruling white government sent the police to watch her every action, whether work-related or private. Her mail was examined and her phones were bugged, largely because she was Jewish, a woman, middle class, liberal and a very vocal opponent of Apartheid. So the National Party put every conceivable hurdle in her way. I am amazed she survived assassins' bullets. The most obnoxious bit of legislation in her time was the Black Homeland Cit­iz­enship Act 1970 which changed the status of the blacks. They would no longer be citizens of South Africa, but would become citizens of one of the 10 autonomous territories.

Freed Nelson Mandela thanking Helen Suzman
1990, NY Times

Robben Island, located off South Africa’s coast, had a long history of being a penal colony but only from the mid 1960s-91 was it was the brutal home to the nation’s maximum security gaol. Nelson Man-dela was imprisoned there from 1964-82 and Suzman visited the island on a regular basis; she reported on the gross indignities of prison life and to get the prison system to reduce the worst suffering of Mandela and other political prisoners.
                              

Dame Helen was the first woman to be awarded the Honorary Freedom of Hull in 1987, but I cannot find her connection to that city. Yet correspondence with Helen Suzman is definitely still held at Hull Uni History Archives.

Later, as parliamentary white opposition to Apartheid grew, her Party merged with the Reform Party and became the Progressive Reform Party. Eventually Suzman was joined in Parliament by equally committed re­pr­esentatives. Altogether her parliamentary career lasted 36 years, leaving parliament in 1989, just in time for the inevitable emer­g­ence of a new South Africa. Very shortly after, in 1991, the government formally repealed all Apartheid laws.

Suzman became Pres. of South African Institute of Race Relations from 1991-3, not bad for a women in her mid 70s. In 1993 the Helen Suzman Foundation was founded as a non-partisan think-tank in Sth Africa, dedicated to liberal democratic values and human rights post-Apartheid via its research, journals, litigation & submissions to Parliament. I knew Mandela rightfully won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, but although Suzman was named twice, she sadly never won a Nobel. Luckily she had the time and energy in 1993 to publish her autobiography, In No Uncertain Terms: A South African Memoir, helping her country and the world to recognise the previous injustices of Apartheid.

For some years Suzman was a member of the statutory Human Rights Commission, excited to be at Mandela’s side when he signed the new constitution in 1996. She remained a much-favoured speaker and newspaper author.

The Liberal International is a global federation based in UK. The Liberal International Prize for Freedom is given to a well-known person of liberal conviction who had made outstanding efforts for the defence of freedom and human rights. In 2002 it was awarded to Suzman, the courageous champion of human rights, who in the dark days of Apartheid did more than any other person to keep liberal values alive in South Africa. They noted that as many African countries were moving to political systems based on democracy, human rights and rule of law, the pioneering work that Suzman did in South Africa could not be underrated. 

Blue Plaque unveiled by Helen's daughters

2017

Conclusion
The anti-Apartheid struggle had many heroes, all of whom rightly deserved commemoration and remembrance; all of their contributions helped in some important way to the ending of Apartheid and the dawn of democracy in 1994. Helen Suzman was one such a hero, and she was honoured late in her lifetime but since she died in 2009, she has been honoured in South Africa and globally. I suppose she was very fortunate to survive the hatred she faced in Parliament and lived long enough to see some of the honours with her own eyes. But most of the honours were greatly appreciated by her two daughters, Frances (b1939) and Patricia (b1943).

In Nov 2017  Johannesburg citizens and family members gathered to pay tribute to her with the unveiling of a blue plaque on the Eton Rd Parktown footpath. The plaque was unveiled by Helen’s daughters, 2017 being the centenary of the birth of South Africa’s amazing Helen Suzman. 

Many thanks to Democratic Alliance, South African History on-line, The Heritage Portal  and Liberal International.