Arthur Greene
To mark his 80th birthday four years ago, Shannon Ebrahim penned a booklet telling the story of her husband’s life.
The booklet was titled The Gentle Revolutionary, an apt description of a man who was dedicated to the fight against apartheid, but was driven by kindness, compassion and a hatred of violence.
A journalist, an accountant, a prisoner, a leader within the ANC and eventually a deputy minister under Jacob Zuma, Ebrahim devoted his entire life to the end of oppressive white-minority rule.
Ebie, as he was affectionately referred to throughout his life, was raised by his grandmother in Effingham, a village 50 kilometres outside Durban.
There, he became jointly inspired by the work of the ANC and Mahatma Gandhi, who after being politicised in South Africa led the fight for independence in his parents’ native India. By 13, he was attending mass rallies in Red Square in Durban.
While still a teenager, Ebie developed a passion for journalism. He believed that amplifying the crimes of the racist ruling party was the best way to mobilise the people of South Africa into action.
In the 1950s, he began reporting for the newspaper New Age. And in the early 1960s, he joined the newly formed uMkhonto we Sizwe.
On one occasion, he was sent by his editor to report on the destruction of three electricity pylons in Natal. Little did his boss know, the sabotage was the work of MK, and Ebie was one of the saboteurs.
Ebie’s work for the ANC continued into the 1960s. Recalling these years to his wife, he once said: “One hated the racist system and knew it was violent, and one found oneself forced to use force. If they called for armed struggle out of necessity, one followed because one’s whole life had been in the struggle.”
His fight for emancipation came with heavy sacrifices; he spent two long spells in prison on Robben Island. He spent 16 years there after being sentenced for illegal ANC activities in 1964.
Then, in 1989, he was sentenced to 20 years after being falsely accused of directing military activities – but only served two as the tides of change swept the country.
Whilst free, he led underground ANC operations in Swaziland, only crossing the border into SA in disguise.
Before going to trial in 1989, he made a famous speech in which he said: “If I were to choose my life all over again I would follow the same path. I could never have remained indifferent to the poverty and suffering of our people.”
Ebie became an MP in 1994, and in 2009 Zuma appointed him as the Deputy Minister of International Relations.
Image source: @IraninSA
