Essop Pahad: a diligent communist driven by an optimistic vision of a non-racial South Africa
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Any examination of Pahad’s full political record will take you back to the heroic phases of South Africa’s liberation history, when prospects for a democratic South African government seemed very remote.
Key Points:
- Any examination of Pahad’s full political record will take you back to the heroic phases of South Africa’s liberation history, when prospects for a democratic South African government seemed very remote.
- As a teenager in the 1950s he was busy in the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress.
- This was the equivalent of the youth league of the liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC), for Indian South Africans.
- In my own research on the South African Communist Party’s history, groups like the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress were game-changers.
The early years
- Pahad employed ANC leader Walter Sisulu, supporting his efforts to become an estate agent.
- Both Essop and his younger brother Aziz did well enough to obtain entry to the University of the Witwatersrand.
- The Transvaal Indian Youth Congress was led by party members and its political affiliations were very evident in its journal, New Youth.
- Mbeki was then staying in Johannesburg, completing his A-levels through correspondence after expulsion from Lovedale College for leading a class boycott.
Exile years
- Pahad would complete an MA and a doctorate at Sussex between 1965 and 1971, producing a workmanlike dissertation about the South African Indian Congresses.
- Pahad’s most conspicuous activity during his exile was his deployment in Prague at the World Marxist Review; acknowledgement by the Communist Party of his status as a reliable theoretician.
- He and Meg lived in Prague between 1975 and 1985, and their two daughters were born there, attending Czech schools.
Right-hand man
- At that time Mbeki’s future succession to the presidency was uncertain and the party was one key constituency.
- But it is true that Pahad’s subsequent political career would be defined by his status as Mbeki’s trusted friend, his best man as it were, a function he actually performed at Mbeki’s wedding in 1974.
- So, during the presidency of Nelson Mandela (10 May 1994-16 June 1999) he served as Mbeki’s “parliamentary counsellor”.
Diligent
- He surprised even his critics with the diligence with which he supported the offices placed under his authority as minister, for example urging municipalities to “mainstream” disability rights.
- He had invited Ajay Gupta to join the International Marketing Council in 2000, an appointment that he subsequently regretted.