Politicians, artists, activists and the friends and family of Prof Kader Asmal, the former ANC cabinet minister and Trinity law professor who died in June, gathered in the Mansion House in Dublin this evening to commemorate his life.
Among the speakers at the event were his wife Louise, Seamus Heaney and the Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton.
Prof Asmal was a member of the first democratically elected government of South Africa having previously been a leader of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement.
His wife Louise said she was moved to see so many “old friends and comrades” in the audience and spoke warmly of the more than 20 years the couple spent living in Dublin working galvanising support for the anti-apartheid movement.
She described him as “a demanding activist” but added that he “never demanded of others what he was not prepared to do himself.” She said he had been dismayed by the “jostling for personal power” in the ANC in recent years but added that he had never given up his membership of the party or given up fighting for what he believed was right.
Joan Burton was actively involved in the anti-apartheid movement in Ireland and served on its executive and as its honorary secretary for many years. She said that he had written to her earlier this year when she was made a cabinet minister to remind her that “he hadn’t got the cabinet job he wanted either”. He as made minister for water in the first ANC government and was passed over for the ministerial post charged with developing a new constitution.
Ms Burton said he told her “to still go in there and fight for what you believe in and never give up”.
Mr Asmal was one of the founders of the Irish Civil Liberties League and was a tireless campaigner for social justice both here and in South Africa. “We can be grateful that his dedication to Irish affairs ran in parallel to his utter dedication he gave to the anti apartheid movement,” she said.
Mr Heaney told The Irish Times that he had first met Prof Asmal in 1967 in his home in Dundrum. “He was very much in love with Ireland and when I met him last in South Aftica he spoke jubilantly of the country.”
Addressing the 300 strong audience, the Nobel Laureate said he was “a tireless ambassador for the republic of conscience”.
Mr Heaney said he had given some though to a fitting epitaph for the politician and said he had settled upon Yeat’s translation of Jonathan Swift’s epitaph. “Swift has sailed into his rest; Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his Breast.
Imitate him if you dare, World-Besotted Traveler; he Served human liberty. “
