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- President Cyril Ramaphosa and former Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke were among those who paid tribute to renowned human rights lawyer George Bizos.
- Bizos, who died last week, spent most of his life using the law to combat injustice and defending many involved in armed struggles.
- The legal titan has been praised for continuing to fight for the oppressed even against the democratic government of South Africa.
Renowned human rights lawyer George Bizos has been remembered for his hatred of oppression and inequality, which he is said to carry with him until he breathed his last.
These were some of the feelings shared by many during his funeral on Thursday.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and former Supreme Court Vice President Dikgang Moseneke, who was his longtime friend and mentee, were among the many who paid tribute to Bizos, describing him as a “giant” who had contributed immensely to South Africa’s freedom.
READ | Selfless, generous, larger than life: SA mourns legal titan George Bizos
Ramaphosa had declared this special category 1 official funeral for the social activist who died last week at the age of 92.
“When it was not in fashion, George Bizos chose the side of the oppressed,” Moseneke said during his tribute.
Bizos represented many fighting heroes, including Rivonian processors such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Andrew Mlangeni, Denis Goldberg, Govan Mbeki, and Ahmed Kathrada.
It was the lawyer’s “if necessary,” a warning believed to have prevented Mandela from being hanged in apartheid South Africa.
“He deeply hated oppression, inequality and injustice until his deathbed,” said the former vice president of the Supreme Court.
Moseneke recalled many years working alongside “Baba Bizos”, sharing anecdotes and stories of living in the lawyer’s house when they defended the late icon of the struggle Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in the Stompie Seipei affair, trips to Robben Island to defend the striking workers and the relationship the two had with South Africa’s founding president, the late Nelson Mandela.
Moseneke also told a handful of mourners, due to Covid-19 regulations allowing only 50 people in meetings, at the Hellenic Center in Hilbrow, of the discomfort he had experienced after becoming a Constitutional Court judge and later for his mentor to appear as a lawyer before him.
He said:
“What vigor, what resistance, what firmness, what stubborn commitment to justice, to freedom, to others with whom he did not have racial, ethnic, ethereal or external attributes; he only cared because they were human too.”
‘Great baobab’
Ramaphosa told mourners, including the sons of Bizos, that “a large baobab had fallen.”
He praised Bizos, not only for his work in the courtroom, but for being there for the families of Steve Biko, Ahmed Timol and Neil Aggett, who were murdered by the apartheid government while in custody.
Reflecting on the life of Bizos, the president said that the renowned lawyer, who came to South Africa at age 13 as a refugee from Greece, was destined to be an activist lawyer and champion of the struggle for liberation.
Both speakers spoke at length about how Bizos could not accept the oppression being exercised against the black majority while he, as a refugee, enjoyed even more rights solely because of the color of his skin.
They both praised him for continuing to work beyond retirement age, alongside young attorneys at the Legal Resource Center whom he treated as peers, as well as the passion he put into the SAHETi School, which he founded and continued to support.
Marikana
“He was on the right side of history. When democratic government fell short or was big business, he and his colleagues stepped in. We owe it to his legacy to finish what George started,” Ramaphosa said without mentioning the Marikana tragedy. .
The president has been criticized for his alleged role in the murder of striking miners at Marikana in 2012, during his time as a non-executive director at the Lonmin mines.
Their language and their call for “concomitant actions” have been, in part, blamed for the police opening fire on the miners. He has long vowed to visit the small Northwest community to apologize, but he has not yet.
Bizos represented the families of the workers killed during Farlam’s commission of inquiry.
Ramaphosa said that the law must continue to be an instrument of protection for the most vulnerable from people, companies or even the state.
“At times it seemed his energy was limitless, neither the forward march of age or frailty could keep him out of the courtroom,” the president said.
Speaking of Bizos’ ability to speak his mind, his lack of care for the “airs and graces” of politicians, and his continuing quest for justice, Ramaphosa said that the country and the legal fraternity were poorer for this loss.
“George was indeed the son of the earth, he was not born of it, but a part of it. He moved the earth, he was a patriot. He became a South African citizen and proud.”
He urged young people to harness the spirit of the social activist and apply human rights laws.
