KAY MOONSAMY – THE HUMBLE FREEDOM ACTIVIST WHO SACRIFICED 67 YEARS OF HIS LIFE, INCLUDING HIS FAMILY, IN THE ANC STRUGGLES FOR A FREE, NON-RACIAL AND DEMOCRATIC SOUTH AFRICA

Mr Kay Moosamy addressing a function in 2010 held to remember the contributions of people in the social, political, educational, economic and sporting upliftment of South Africa. By Subry Govender One of the political activists and struggle stalwarts who like, Nelson Mandela, sacrificed 67 years of his life for the freedom we enjoy today is little-known 90-year-old Kay Moonsamy of Chatsworth in Durban. This correspondent had the opportunity of interviewing Mr Moonsamy at his home in 2009 when he had retired from active politics after serving 10 years in parliament as a member of the ruling ANC. He had earlier spent 27 in exile, working for the ANC in Botswana, Swaziland, Zambia, India and the Soviet Union. Born at Overport in Durban in 1926, Kay Moonsamy became involved in the political struggles at the tender age of 16 when he joined the Natal Box, Broom and Bush Workers Union while working as a labourer at a factory called Rhodesian Timbers Limited in an area now known as Durban North. His parents were working-class and poor. He was forced to leave school at an early age because of the economic conditions at home and he was obliged to go to work in order to assist his family. “I joined the trade union movement in order to improve our working conditions and to get higher wages,” he said. “The wages at that time was a miserable 15 shillings (about R1 – 50) a week. My involvement in the trade union led me to joining the Community Party and the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) in 1944 at the young age of 18.” At this time in the 1940s there was a titanic struggle between conservative and progressive forces in the NIC and Moonsamy became actively involved in the campaign to overthrow the conservative element, known as the Kajee-Pather group. The leaders of this association were businessmen and cultural leaders, Mr A I Kajee and Mr P R Pather.

“In 1943 the Natal Indian Congress was in the hands of the reactionary Kajee-Pather group. Now progressives like Dr Monty Naicker, M D Naidoo, Debi Singh and others formed what was called the Anti-Segregation Council in order to bring about a change in the leadership because of the reactionary stances of the Kajee-Pather group who did not want to have any collaboration with other national groups. They said they will go it alone in so far as the struggles against the Government at that time. “That campaign drew me into the struggles of the NIC and we removed the Kajee-Pather group way back in 1945. We attended a meeting at Currie’s Fountain on 21st October 1945 when we kicked out the Kajee-Pather group lock, stock and barrel,” said Moonsamy. For the next 10 years he was caught up in a number of trade union and anti-government struggles. During one of the campaigns against racial oppression, Moonsamy, still only 20 years-years-old, was arrested, charged and convicted under the notorious Riotous Assemblies Act. He was sentenced to his first term in jail for four months, serving his imprisonment at the Durban Central Prison and at a farm in Ixopo in southern KwaZulu-Natal. When he was about to take up the post of the full-time organising secretary of the Natal Indian Congress, he was arrested with 155 other leaders in 1956 and charged with High Treason. This was the first time that he had met activists who would later become the leading lights of the struggle. “For the first time we had an opportunity to meet the leaders from all the different provinces. We knew most of our members by name but did not meet them personally. The Treason arrests gave us an opportunity to meet all of them at the Fort Prison in Johannesburg. They included comrades such as Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and Walter Sisulu.” In 1961 at the age of 36 Munsamy found himself fully involved in the underground activities of the Communist Party in Durban. At this time the Communist Party was one of the organisations with the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress(PAC) that had been banned and proscribed by the former apartheid regime. But underground work was a dangerous terrain and he was arrested along with other members of his underground cell. He was charged with belonging to unlawful organisations.

On the 29th of June 1965, while out on bail, he was asked by the ANC to go into exile. He first went to Botswana where he spent three years from 1965 to 1968. “Then the movement asked me to come over to Zambia where I joined the External Mission,” he said. “At that point in time we had External Missions in different countries but not very many. We had an office in London, some offices in Africa, with one in Zambia and our headquarters based in Tanzania.” When Kay Moonsamy went into exile in 1965 he had to leave behind his wife and four children, the youngest was his son Rajan, who was only nine-months-old. He met them again for the first time 15 years later in Swaziland. This was the most traumatic period in his life. “After leaving my wife and children in 1965, we met again for the first time on the fourth of July 1980 in Manzini in Swaziland. When I joined the ANC in exile, our eldest child, Tammy, was nine-years-old, Ragini was six, Saroj was two-and-half and our youngest Rajan was only nine-months-old. Incidentally Rajan was born when I was in detention in 1964. When I met them again, Tammy was already married and our youngest Rajan was 15-years-old.” In exile, Moonsamy served the ANC, the SACP and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) in several capacities. He was also the ANC's representative in India for a brief period in 1978 and worked for some time in the ANC's treasurer's department. “Working in the Treasurer General’s office I was involved in fund-raising and seeing to the maintenance and upkeep of those who had fled the country. In 1976 we had a large numbers of people coming into exile, especially after the Soweto uprisings in June 1976. “Large numbers of students came into exile and my activities included working with the late Thomas Nkobi for the upkeep and maintenance of our people. Now we had thousands to provide food, clothing and shelter,” said Moonsamy. He also underwent military training in the then Soviet Union and was one of the activists in exile who was involved in the formulation and development of the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Tanzania. This was his last assignment before returning home in 1991. He said: “At the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College, which was based in Morogoro, we also constructed houses. When we took over that place there were just about six ram-shackled buildings. But when we left Tanzania in 1992, the Movement (ANC) handed over to the Tanzanian Government 300 conventional buildings with running water, fully-furnished offices, houses, and tarred roads. We were also self-sufficient in that place. We had a tailor shop, shoe-making shop, agricultural sector, we had a furniture factory, which provided the furniture for the 300 houses. The surplus we used to sell it on the market and that is how we used to raise funds for the Movement.” After his return home in 1991, he was very active in the South African Communist Party while serving at the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg. He was deployed as an MP in 1999, serving two terms until April 2009. He found parliamentary work just as rewarding as his freedom work. “Parliament was another terrain and it was interesting. As legislators we had to enact laws in keeping with our founding document and a constitution which stands for a united, democratic, non-sexist, non-racial South Africa. I think we participated fully, strengthened the parliamentary structures and today I think we can be proud that we have a strong democratic system in our country and I think the Constitution is paramount.” Although he's now retired, Kay Moonsamy cannot stay out of politics. He’s still involved with the ANC branch in Chatsworth. In the interview in 2009 he told me that he was very happy with the progress made so far by the ANC and believed the Jacob Zuma Government would be very effective, despite the many challenges. One of the challenges was the use of racism by some ANC deployees. I asked him for his views about this, especially racism that was used to try to destroy the historical Early Morning Market in Durban. “Making racist remarks are not permissible and I think it will be outrageous if those statements comes from people within the Movement (ANC) that stands for a fully non-racial, democratic South Africa. This is not only what we have to preach but also practise. The ANC stands for this noble ideal and I think we are totally committed to building a non-racial, democratic society. One cannot over-emphasise this,” he had said. Mr Kay Moonsamy and most of the activists of his calibre were and are firmly rooted in the ANC's values and principles. It's hoped that some of those now found wanting will follow in the footsteps of the Kay Moonsamys', who had sacrificed almost everything, including their families, to promote the cause of true freedom, justice, liberty and non-racialism. – ends (subrygovender@gmail.com)