Eulogy on the occasion of the funeral of stalwart Ntate Isaac Mogase
by Executive Mayor Cllr Geoff Makhubo
6 May 2021
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A recurring feature of Ntate Mogase’s life was his great humility. He was always self-effacing. He was always seeking to deflect attention from himself and talk about the people, particularly the poor masses.
We can say with certainty that his life was driven by his commitment to the lives of the poor and determination to do all that was in his power to alleviate and eradicate poverty.
It touched on his community activism, government role and even his religious life.
Ntate Mogase was part of those generations of activists who understood that to be an activist came with a great personal cost.
It meant that he would not always be there for his wife and for his children. It meant that he would be a father figure to many in his community, in the civic movement, in the branches of his movement and in his parish.
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It meant that sooner or later he would accept that his own personal freedom would be curtailed because the apartheid state would do what it always did.
It would detain him indefinitely with the aim of sending a chill factor to others that they too would be locked up if they did not behave as the state wanted them to.
In a political tradition where the common honorific for any man or woman was never Mister or Miss but “comrade” or simply, “com”, Isaac Mogase was commonly known as Ntate Mogase.
This was because even as way back as in the UDF days, he played a father figure to the younger comrades and activists.
In police detention, he was the one providing fatherly guidance and voice of reason to younger comrades and activists.
This was because Ntate Mogase fully understood that his role was not going to be confined by space. He would never gave up on what he saw as his life’s mission which was to accentuate individual human worth in the context of a society working well together.
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Programme Director
Chaplain
Baruti; the clergy
Program Director; former Premier of Gauteng Province Ntate Mbhazima Shilowa
Speaker of Council; Cllr Nonceba Molwelee
Chief Whip; Cllr Solly Mogase
Mma rona Mme Netta Mogase
The children Abuti Thabo, Abuti Mutle and Ousi Tshidi
Grand children and great grand children
Mogase family and relatives
Maruping Family
Chairperson of the NCOP and former Executive Mayor of COJ; Hon Amos Masondo
Gauteng MEC of Economic Development and former Executive Mayor Hon Parks Tau
Former City Manager Prof Trevor Fowler
Former MMC of Finance in our city Comrade Kenny Fihla
Provincial Secretary of ANC of our Province; Comrade Jacob Khawe
Leadership of the ANC and Alliance
Veterans of the Civic Movement
Councillors and former councillors
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Comrades and compatriots
Fellow mourners
On behalf of the City of Joburg Metropolitan Municipality, I would like to convey my deep condolences to the family, comrades, friends and relatives of
Ntate Isaac Dank Mogase.
I wish to reflect on Ntate Mogase’s legacy by emphasising, first and foremost, that I would not be standing here in front of you all in my capacity as the
Executive Mayor of this Great City, if it were not for this extraordinary citizen.
Myself and those that came before me (Former Mayors Amos Masondo and
Parks Tau), would not have had the privilege of re-designing Johannesburg’s spatial injustices and economic inequalities, had it not been for this towering figure of a man.
To us, he is the First Mayor full stop. We do not recognize anyone who claims to have come before him.
He paved the way for the transformation of Soweto from the apartheid reserve it used to be into a modern city.
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He paved the way for the introduction of an Integrated Development Plan, which was a plan to tackle reconstruction and development, reduce crime through enforcement of by-laws, increase metro police visibility, rejuvenate and regenerate the Inner City.
Because of him, policies such as the Growth & Development Strategy 2040, which is the City’s policy plan to reverse the apartheid legacy of spatial segregation and discrimination (by 2040), have continued where he left off.
For myself and former mayors Parks Tau and Amos Masondo, Ntate Mogase was a torch bearer. He was the blueprint Mayor, the First of firsts. A catalytic force that encouraged us and gave us hope that a black Mayorship was possible. That men like me can lead this great City and contribute to its development.
We who are in the City Government today know too well that we stand on their great and broad shoulders.
We are here because they charted the path we find ourselves on. Ntate
Mogase and his companions laid the foundation for the developmental path that we today known as the Growth and Development Strategy 2040.
That is why we have no fear of contradiction when we say that he was the doyen of the civic movement in our country, not just in Soweto
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For the poor who had been made to feel that their race determined the quality of their lives, Ntate Mogase’s ascendence gave great consolation that their lives meant something. At last they would be given a chance to live out their lives with no apartheid-sponsored interruptions!
At last City interventions would be drawn up with them in mind. With the focus being to radically change their lives, so that their children and grandchildren will participate in society on an equal footing.
Because of men like Ntate Mogase, cities like Johannesburg are an economic hub where people from all over the continent – and dare I say, the world – come looking for economic opportunities. The freedoms we enjoy today as black
African city dwellers are because he showed us that it is indeed possible. He told us that they are ours, and never again will they be taken from us.
However, Programme Director, his was no easy task. He inherited a dark City with no potential for the poor, which were mainly black people who had already been forcibly removed and placed in apartheid segregated towns according to the rank of their race.
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During apartheid, no form of metropolitan government existed in South Africa.
There was rather a racial fragmentation of cities. Which makes the ascendence of a black man to much a colossal platform all the more awe-inspiring.
In more ways than one, Ntate Mogase’s legacy is part of Johannesburg’s very fabric.
When children play freely in our parks, with no threat of being told to play in another park because of the colour of their skin, it is because Ntate Mogase showed us it was possible.
When the taps of townships continue to run with quality water, it is because
Ntate Mogase showed us the importance of restoring the dignity of the poor.
And when bridges are built; transport modes connected to economic centres; employment created through cooperatives; houses awarded to residents who need them the most, it is because this giant of Soweto saw black people as active participants in the City’s economy.
A man who got the call to serve and answered it even in the face of great adversity.
We can now say that his legacy is dedicated to dealing directly with the evils of apartheid.
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To the family, on behalf of the City and its residents, we wish to thank you from the depths of our hearts for lending us this icon. This towering figure of freedom.
There is no amount of words that could properly define our gratitude.
The City swells with potential because men like him took the baton from evil men and turned it into this bastion of economic opportunities.
Fellow Mourners, We are here to pay tribute to such a man. An honorable man who served with distinction. A man of great courage, of resolve, and a man with selflessness. Here lies a man who devoted his life to the liberation of our people. Mr Mogase so ably represented the people of this city, because he was an outstanding example of the kind of public representative that the people of our country seek and deserve.
Thank you, Ntate Mogase, for being a beacon of hope in the formation of our
City. Thank you for your stellar leadership. For the sacrifies untold. For your unwavering commitment to the residents of our City.
I promise to protect it, and honour it, until I am no longer able to. I am privileged to have been a resident in your time, and I am even more privileged to have
8 | P a g e been given the opportunity to lead where you have led. To walk through the streets that you deemed were open to anyone and everyone.
Our children do not have an inkling of inferiority when they share classrooms with their white counterparts. And it is because you existed. Albeit with its challenges, today Joburg looks like a different City because of men like you: a
City alive with possibilities!
As a people of the City of Johannesburg, we are grateful to the Mogase Family for lending your husband, father, uncle and grandfather to the service of the struggle for freedom and dignity.
The City of Johannesburg as a municipality is grateful for all that Ntate Mogase did to ensure that we have the type of World Class African City we have today.
We can never fully repay him the debt that we owe him.
The best we can do towards repaying that debt would be to take a leaf from his life and recommit ourselves to the principles that had guided his life and his activism, particularly the commitment to place the poor and the excluded at the centre of our policies.
A Fallen Soldier's Prayer Poem
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By Kelly Roper (poet)
Dear Lord,
The battle is over for me,
My mission to fight is finished,
And my time on earth is over.
Guide me home to you, Lord,
But watch over my brothers and sisters,
Still in the heat of battle.
Protect them, Lord, body and soul,
And if it pleases Your will,
Deliver them safely to their loved ones,
Until it's their time to join You in Heaven.
Amen.
Robala ka kagiso tautona, Mokwena
Gone le fa o tsamaya o re tlogela, tiro yone o e dirile.
A magodimo a go nesetse dipula, tsela ya dikgato tsa gago e fetoge noka.
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Re tla dula re go gopola gonne tiro ya gago e tla dula e leng teng lefatsheng le le ka kwano.
Robala, ya gago tiro o e weditse.
Bona boroko!
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