Paying tribute to George Bizos

The Collins Chabane Foundation praises “striker against the enforcers of racial bigotry”

The Collins Chabane Foundation has paid a glowing tribute to the late human rights lawyer and anti-apartheid campaigner George Bizos who died on September 9 at the age of 92

George Bizos. Picture: Christa Eybers/EWN

The foundation that continues the legacy of the late minister and ANC NEC member Chabane who passed on in 2015 after an accident praised Bizos who was part of a select group of white lawyers who despite their colour fought against apartheid.

In a statement, the CCF said: “Throughout our winter of discontent, when the rulers of our land unleashed their worst against humanity: when the children were asked to donate their fragile bodies to bullets of war, women embracing the lifeless bodies of their children and fighters squeezing the last tear from their bleeding hearts, locked behind walls of separation and forests of resistance, there are those who crossed the line, abandoning the promised crown of racial superiority conferred upon them by the priests of apartheid, simply on the grounds of their pigmentation.”

The foundation mentioned his name along other luminaries who despite their skin colour fought against the racial system in South Africa.

They were names such as Bram Fischer, Rust Bernstein, Dennis Goldberg, Arthur Chaskalson, Joel Joffe, Joe Slovo, Anton Lubowski, to mention some.
“This is the league of George Bizos. It is the league in which he played the role of a defender of human rights and dignity, and a striker against the enforcers of racial bigotry, “read the statement.

It said Bizos affirmed his humanity by defending those who were stripped of their own.

Bizos is remembered for being a lawyer defending many trialists during the apartheid times including the Rivonia trial in which he defended former president Nelson Mandela and other leader.

Professor Muxe Nkondo

In the words of Professor Muxe Nkondo who is the chairperson of the foundation: “There was in the sensibility of George Bizos double endowment: an urge towards justice n an impulse to belong to the liberation movement. To be implicated in his time, with history and politics, was not a mind exercising in a void, but was energized by the impulse to strike at the conscience of the world. This is an obligation he bravely and openly acknowledged, a permanent imperative whose importunity he could not avoid.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa has given him an official state funeral. The funeral service will take place tomorrow at the Greek Orthodox Church in Johannesburg starting from 11am.

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