Jack Govender: A Che Guevara of our time

Jack Govender: A Che Guevara of our time

Jack Govender, aka Sipho Khumalo, has made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom. An internationalist in every sense, he laid down his life not for 'his people' in any narrow sense, but for his people in the broader sense that he took oppression and suffering anywhere as his own.

Jack's commitment to liberation did not start with his role in founding SSN. He was a community and political activist in his hometown of Durban. He was a student activist in SANSCO and SASCO during his days at the University of Durban-Westville. Jack left the country during the early 1990's for military training with Umkhonto we Sizwe. This was not the ordinary path for someone coming from his background. Other people could have just focussed on their studies, stayed as a student activist, or started working – but Jack was not somebody ordinary. On returning from military training he was integrated as an MK into the SANDF. But soon he was looking for other avenues for making a contribution. Jack was also a trade unionist, working for POPCRU and spearheading their political education. He was active in the ANC, ANCYL, and SACP.

Meanwhile, South Africa had gained freedom from apartheid but just next door Swaziland was still under the yoke of royal oppression. Jack threw himself into the Swazi struggle for freedom, democracy, and socialism. He could have just settled for a government job, or got some tenders, enjoying the fruits of a free South Africa that he had himself struggled for. But he could not relax in that freedom while just a few hundred kilometres away people could not enjoy the same freedom.

At that time the Swaziland struggle was not fashionable in South Africa: there was no SSN, no marches or meetings. Jack's commitment to that struggle was in a pure spirit of selfless internationalism and he did not seek any limelight.

He is the first South African to lay down his life for the Swaziland struggle, but there is a long and proud history of Swazi participation in the South African struggle for freedom, even in the face of collaboration between the Swaziland and apartheid regimes. Swazi revolutionaries such as Keith MacFadden fought and died for South African freedom. This was not interference, but internationalism; and it is fitting that the spirit of internationalism continues today.

Jack did not define himself as Indian, or even just as a South African; rather as a human who felt other people's suffering as his own. He was really someone special. And he did take pleasure in life: he was free with people and enjoyed music, playing guitar, and dancing.

Jack was one of very few people that actually lived his life in the spirit of Che Guevara. And indeed like Che, he died suddenly in another country fighting for freedom. Jack is the embodiment of the internationalist spirit, something so rare in this century.

It is still difficult to believe that Jack is no more. He had a full life, but still had so much to live for. We can only be comforted by knowing that he had long ago made a commitment of being willing to die for his beliefs, took a course that did indeed put his own life at risk for a noble cause, and died fighting for freedom. Jack and his comrade MJ will be remembered in history as the first revolutionary martyrs of the Swaziland struggle.

By comrade Fiona SACP, ANC, SSN member