By: Carl Niehaus
I have known comrade Pule ‘Boutros’ Mlambo for many years. We have always known each other as comrades.
However, at first it was at a distance, being aware of each other and working together for the same objectives, but during the last couple of years we were in a much closer proximity working together as colleagues in the Office of the Secretary General of the ANC – often on the same political projects with the same ultimate goals.
Our increased closeness over the years produced a strong bond of friendship, and comradeship. Ours was one of those unique relationships, where proximity and familiarity did not breed contempt, as that hackneyed old saying goes, but rather resulted in the opposite in the form of respect, care, and protection for each other.
To put it simply: We had each other’s backs. Comrade Pule is one of those rare fellow politicians, and liberation fighters, that I can without hesitation call a true friend and comrade – yes indeed: #FriendshipInComradeship! To say that about a fellow comrade is for me the highest praise, in a sad political environment where pseudo-comrades and betrayers have increasingly become the norm.
Comrade Pule was always a principled man, and a value driven liberation fighter. He personified the incarnation in his person of historical ideological maturity, in an era that increasingly is characterized by the death of ideology and by expediency.
If there was one thing that Pule never was, it is expedient. He was no political jellyfish, he had a backbone of steel! For this, as a man of principle, he paid a heavy price in his political and personal life. He was undermined by far lesser so-called ‘comrades’, and was worked out of political office by charlatans with much lesser ability, who were never even half the human being and revolutionary that he was.
It is a measure of the greatness of the man that Pule never allowed these treacherous experiences – which also had dire personal and financial consequences – to undermine his political commitment, nor made him cynical. He always remained a well balanced and principled political optimist. It was the solidness of his political analyses, and commitment, that always made him stand out as a leader among his comrades.
Comrade Pule was never a grandstander, he did not rely on the lime-light to find affirmation for his political views. In fact he personified all the characteristics of a great leader, and commissar, that lead the most effectively from the back. His style of political intervention, and leadership, was never self-promotion nor confrontational. Instead he would engage, persuade and convince on the basis of the strength of his personality, and his historical and ideological understanding.
Of course there were times that the two of us disagreed with each other about strategy about how to achieve our objectives. Those who know me, know how hard-headed, to the point of being obstreperous, I sometimes can be.
However, what always impressed me was Pule’s firm humility, and his preparedness to engage and argue through any issue to the point of us reaching a workable consensus, and being able to move ahead and get the work done and achieve our objectives. He was one of the few people who on numerous occasions have convinced me to change tact.
No-one could ever fault comrade Pule on his love for, and commitment to, the ANC. The African National Congress was up to his last breath his true – and one and only – political home. The interventions that he made, when he was convinced that there are those in the ANC (sadly also leaders) who are betraying the historical liberation task and ideals of the ANC, were never done with malice. These were always based on his singular determination to bring the ANC back to its historical roots, and to ensure that it will continue to be a pro-poor Liberation Movement, dedicated to first and foremost serve all our people.
I have often seen comrade Pule at the back of a meeting, not pushing himself to be in front on the stage. Yet, he was from that apparent humble back seat, more influential and powerful than those in the front, through his sound ideological analysis and strategic brilliance. So often I have observed how his strategic objectives were carefully unfolding, without him even being seen for the ultimate strategist and direction giver t in always was.
Comrade Pule passed on at a time that we needed his particular style of leadership, and his principled political brilliance, more than ever before.
Our beloved Liberation Movement is in a deep, and potentially fatal. crisis. We need selfless leaders to lead us away from the precipice, and to save us from a selfish and failed ANC leadership who have betrayed the revolutionary heart of the ANC.
This unassuming, quiet, but determined leader no longer being among us is a massive – and truly irreplaceable – loss. However, Pule would never have wanted us to despair. The essence of the message of the example of his life is that we must soldier on, and never compromise in our commitment to the full liberation of all our people.
Our liberation – he always reminded us – must include the full economic liberation and empowerment of the majority of poor black, and specifically African, South Africans. Comrade Pule, in a principled and uncompromising way, supported Radical Economic Transformation (RET) as the official economic policy program of the ANC. He was never narrow, or factional, in his support for RET. He always understood RET as being the ideological backbone of the ANC, that can be traced back right to the formation of the ANC 110 years ago in the Waaihoek Methodist Church, in Mangaung. He was never a counter-revolutionary revisionist. To be a sell-out was alien to the very fibre of his being. He was always and ideologically sound revolutionary, and very clear about his historical roots.
It is in that context that the principled manner in which comrade Pule lived his revolutionary life continues to urge us never to give up, and to continue to fight for our Radical Economic Transformation ideals ultimately – and fully – to be achieved.
Personally, I will dearly miss those late night and early morning telephone calls from my brother comrade, always to discuss political strategy with me. Sometimes urging to move with care, other times telling me that it is now the time to uncompromisingly charge ahead. All of this interspersed with his unique trademark laugh. However, I will not stop asking when I find myself in any difficult situation, what would my dear comrade have advised me to do. I know that many of us will also continue to do that, and in that sense comrade Pule ‘Boutros’ Malambo has not departed from our midsts, his example and life will continue to be a blazing torch – a guiding light – on the dark winding road, with all its many challenges, that we have to continue to traverse on this long walk to freedom of ours.
Go well my dear brother and comrade. You have fought the good fight. We will pick up your spear and continue the struggle that you have dedicated your whole life to. Ay’khale! We will not waver, nor rest, until we truly achieve our full liberation.
Hamba kahle Mkhonto
A LUTA CONTINUA!
