If ever there was anyone who lived, slept and dreamt the revolution 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it was Cecyl Esau, who passed away last week. He would have turned 66 on September 30 this year.
Esau, who has a hostel named after him at the University of the Western Cape (where, ironically, he stayed for a short while in the 1990s), died of natural causes at his home in Table View.
His name had been synonymous with the Struggle. For much of the 1970s and ’80s, Esau had travelled the length and breadth of South Africa, organising many communities and activists.
One of my most compelling memories of Esau is riding on the back seat of his little Vespa scooter from Mitchells Plain, where I lived, and going to places like Ocean View and Hout Bay to visit branches of the Cape Youth Congress (Cayco), of which we were both in the leadership.
The other most memorable thing about Esau was his hearty, infectious laugh. His laugh was like his signature, making everyone aware he was in the room.
Another of my best memories of Cecyl was when we drove, in the heart of a cold winter, to Fraserburg in the Karoo, to attend his wedding. It is still one of the most memorable weddings I have attended.
Over the past few days, I have shared with former comrades stories of our interaction with Cecyl and the memories that will remain with us forever.
Esau impacted the lives of many who became involved in the Struggle against apartheid, said Goolam Abubaker, who worked as adviser to former UWC vice-chancellor Professor Jakes Gerwel.
Abubaker was also a United Democratic Front (UDF) Western Cape activist and was involved in the ANC’s underground structures.
“Two weeks ago (former activist) Neville van der Rheede and I had breakfast with Cecyl, and he was looking strong and healthy. The news of his passing came as such a huge shock.
“We had spoken about many things: the state of national politics, the challenges of organising coloured people in the Western Cape under the banner of the ANC, and the corruption engulfing the ANC.
“But the overriding concerns remained how to bridge the divide between coloured and African people in the Western Cape; how to generate the organisations and intellectual vigour of the 1980s that resulted in so many activists and intellectuals accepting the leadership of the ANC.
“Cecyl asked us whether this was related to the quality of the UDF and ANC underground (and MK) leadership in the Western Cape? Was it related to the vibrant mass-based civic, youth and women’s organisations? He also asked what it would take to rekindle that leadership and organisation,” said Abubaker.
He described Esau as an intellectual giant.
“He read widely – Gramsci, Lenin, Cabral and Fanon, to mention a few. He enjoyed discussing their relevance with other activists, drawing out their lessons to understand our challenges.
“His influence on generations of student leadership at UWC was immense. His contribution as a youth organiser for the Churches Urban Planning Commission, as organiser for the UDF, building civic and youth organisations in the rural areas of the Western and Northern Cape was immeasurable. His contribution to our hard-won democracy must never be forgotten.”
Elizabeth Cloete, the former general secretary of the Clothing Workers’ Union (one of the organisations Esau helped to form), recalled how Esau was uspended by the ANC for questioning the Africanist tendencies in the organisation.
“After the unbanning of the ANC, Cecyl became provincial organiser of the ANC in the Western Cape. At the time, the likes of Amos Lengesi and Tony Yengeni were in the leadership in the province. In a letter, Cecyl took issue with the Africanist tendencies in the ANC. In essence, he argued for the ANC to give expression to the movement’s non-racial ethos.
“This got him into hot water and, under Yengeni’s watch, Cecyl was suspended as ANC provincial organiser. He was an organiser par excellence.”
Trevor Oosterwyk, the first president of Cayco, said Esau was “the embodimentof the kind of camaraderie that was cultivated during the 1980s”.
“He travelled the length and breadth of this country and the southern African region, taking the message and hope of freedom with him. His indomitable spirit drove many of us even at times of deep despair.”
Dr Allan Boesak, who had been a UDF patron, described Esau as “that rarest of beings: a gentle revolutionary”.
Dr Boesak said Esau was “a fiercely committed activist, one who understood the demands of the revolution with unremitting clarity, and therefore understood what was expected of him. Yet a man who was not so blindly loyal to the cause that he lost sight of the people: their needs, their fears, their joys, their aspirations, their dreams and hopes.
“His passion for freedom and justice never eclipsed his pathos for the people. That is why he was so loved and respected. And that is why he will be honoured and remembered. May God receive his soul in peace and with joy.”
Esau is survived by five children and a granddaughter, his sister, June, and two brothers, Alexander and Jacob .
He studied at the University of the Western Cape during the 1970s and 1980s. His studies were often interrupted due to his activism and several stints in detention and in prison. From
1986 to 1991, he spent five years of a 12-year-sentence on Robben Islandafter being involved in the underground activities of the ANC’s military wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe.
Esau was born in Worcester, where he also became involved in the Struggle in the early 1970s. He was greatly influenced by Johnny Issel and Hennie Ferus, who were involved in activities of the banned ANC. Esau was one of the leaders who raised the ANC flag at Ferus’s funeral in 1981.
He was awarded the Freedom of Worcester in 2020 in recognition of his contribution to the Struggle for freedom.
An official provincial funeral/memorial will be held for Esau at the Worcester Town Hall from 10am tomorrow (Saturday 27 March 2021).
(Adapted from a piece first published in the Cape Times on Thursday 25 March 2021)
