New Age2.png Makhura honours Reggie Vandeyar Premier urges public to continue stalwart's fight for equality Peter Ramothwala, The New Age, Johannesburg, 21 September 2015 Premier David Makhura urged mourners at the funeral of ANC stalwart and Umkhonto we Sizwe activist Reggie Vandeyar yesterday to stand against political patronage and factions that have taken the place of vibrant grass roots participation and developmental activism. Vandeyar died last Thursday and was buried in Johannesburg. Reggie Vandeyar TNA Funeral Report photo.png Makhura stressed that factions affect development in communities and therefore should be resisted at all cost. He also defended the existence of apartheid and colonial monuments. "We don't agree with the destruction of symbols and monuments dating from apartheid and colonialism. "Although they represent the worst part of our history, they are important collective parts of our history as such they need to be preserved alongside new monuments that explain our history properly. Monuments must be preserved for future generations," he said. Makhura said Vandeyar was no more but his spirit would live among us. "We should emulate 'Uncle Reggie' and fight against racism, poverty, hunger, inequality, greed and corruption in our land. "We need to fight the resurgence of racism. Incidents of racism are rearing their ugly heads in the country," he said. "We remain a highly unequal society even if we have made tremendous progress over the past 20 years, poverty still affects far too many of our people." Vandeyar was at the forefront of many campaigns including the defiance campaign and was a delegate to the Congress of the People that initiated the Freedom Charter. He worked across communities with other veterans like Thomas Nkobi, the former treasurer general of the ANC. Makhura said, "When we develop the lives of the poor we must not neglect the poor wherever they are including Coloureds and Indians. "We need to correct this impression that development only takes place in African townships." Vandeyar was a member of the Transvaal Indian Congress, the South African Indian Congress, ANC, SACP, UDF and MK. Vandeyar became an activist at a young age, which saw him rise through the ranks of the ANC led formations to a position of leadership. He died aged 84. Among the dignitaries at the funeral were struggle icons Ahmed Kathrada, Mac Maharaj and ANC deputy secretary Jessie Duarte. <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] From: <http://tnaepaper.co.za/DRIVE/main%20edition/21092015/epaperpdf/4.pdf> http://tnaepaper.co.za/DRIVE/main%20edition/21092015/epaperpdf/4.pdf (download) -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
