{"id":915964,"date":"2022-01-13T13:52:25","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T13:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/news\/2022\/01\/13\/zweli-mkhize-hanef-bhamjee-and-his-brother-always-invited-me-for-a-meal\/"},"modified":"2022-01-13T13:52:25","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T13:52:25","slug":"zweli-mkhize-hanef-bhamjee-and-his-brother-always-invited-me-for-a-meal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/13\/zweli-mkhize-hanef-bhamjee-and-his-brother-always-invited-me-for-a-meal\/","title":{"rendered":"Zweli Mkhize: \u2019Hanef Bhamjee and his brother always invited me for a meal\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1642081945_701_79f0bba5-48d0-50fa-b894-619cc80aa8fd&#038;operation=CROP&#038;offset=0x52&#038;resize=1528x860.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<div><!--sse--><\/p>\n<p>Durban &#8211; Tributes for the late South African-born British anti-apartheid activist, Mohammed Hanef Bhamjee, have come in from around the country and across the world, as political leaders pay homage to the late stalwart.<\/p>\n<p>Bhamjee died last Saturday, January 8, after a brief illness, according to a close friend and fellow anti-apartheid activist Dr KV (Keller) Moodley.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Bhamjee was born in Marikana, Gauteng, in 1946. Bhamjee\u2019s family later relocated to Pietermartizburg in KZN.<\/p>\n<p>Former health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, who also comes from the capital city, said he took the late Bhamjee as an elder brother and leader.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHanef has been in the forefront of our international Struggle against apartheid, having played a significant role in the anti-apartheid movement since his days as a youth activist. He was involved in the campaigns to isolate apartheid SA in sports and arts and entertainment industries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"RelatedArticlescss__StyledRelatedArticles-sc-10g88yu-0 ezIKFV\">\n<h2><span>MORE ON THIS<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cHe participated in many demonstrations and protests to highlight the brutality and oppressive nature of the apartheid system. He addressed many public gatherings to mobilise support for the liberation Struggle throughout his stay in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe also played a role in supporting the ANC as a member and played a role in increasing the consciousness  of South Africans especially from the Indian  community that travelled to the UK for various reasons and continued to keep in touch when they returned home during the days of our Struggle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhenever he returned on a visit to his family in our town, Pietermaritzburg, my long time friend and comrade Yusuf, who is Hanef\u2019s younger brother always invited me for a meal in the house and long political discussion and briefings which I always looked forward to,\u201d Mkhize told .<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Counsel General and the Minister for the Constitution of Wales, Mick Antoniw, paid tribute to Bhamjee during a Welsh senate sitting yesterday.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">People all around Wales and around the UK and South Africa are remembering our great friend and comrade Hanif Bhamjee and sharing some of their photos pic.twitter.com\/G3rWHqVblC<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mick Antoniw MS\/AS \ud83d\udc99 (@MickAntoniw1) January 9, 2022<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cDuring the past four decades, I can think of no one who has done as much as Hanef for the causes of equality, anti-racism and social justice. Born in South Africa, his opposition to the apartheid regime brought him to the attention of the South African Security Services and in 1965, for his own safety, it was necessary for him to leave.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI first met Hanef in 1973 during the campaigns against the Vietnam war and the facist coup in Chile. As with Hanef, Wales became a welcoming home for many fleeing political oppression. But above all, Hanef is best known for becoming the voice of the anti-apartheid Struggle in Wales,\u201d Antoniw said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Friend and fellow activist Babu Baijoo, also from Pietermaritzburg, said he remembered Hanef visiting his flat in Ireland during the college days. Baijoo attended college with Hanef\u2019s younger brother, Yusuf.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe spent a lot of time together because Yusuf and I shared a flat in Ireland while we were students and obviously Hanef was in and out of Ireland, he was based in Cardiff at the time. He was integral in everything that we did.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe really cared for the students because he was the eldest among the activists from South Africa living abroad,\u201d Baijoo said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Durban &#8211; Tributes for the late South African-born British anti-apartheid activist, Mohammed Hanef Bhamjee, have come in from around the country and across the world, as political leaders pay homage to the late stalwart. Bhamjee died last Saturday, January 8, after a brief illness, according to a close friend and fellow anti-apartheid activist Dr KV [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-915964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}