And the renowned anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman has died at the age of ninety-one. Suzman was one of South Africa’s best known white anti-apartheid activists. She served in the all-white Parliament for over thirty-five years and openly challenged the segregation of blacks by the apartheid system. In 1990, on the fortieth anniversary for the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Suzman said it would take “decades to overcome the bitter legacy of apartheid” and its effects.

Helen Suzman: “But I don’t think that we can look forward necessarily to the protection of the rule of law. We do not know whether the Internal Security Act is one of the acts which is going to be repealed. I think we can have remandments, but let us not delude ourselves into thinking that within a short time the devastating effects of forty years of inferior education and training, of functional illiteracy, which so many young black people have, of inadequate housing, of grinding poverty will be overcome.”

Nelson Mandela said last week South Africa had lost a “great patriot and a fearless fighter against apartheid.” Using her parliamentary privilege, Suzman frequently met with Mandela while he was imprisoned on Robben Island.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “We pay this tribute very, very proudly, humbly, to say that we have lost one of the greatest South Africans, and I certainly hope that we can show it as a nation by giving her what she deserves, an official funeral, something like a state funeral for someone who, I would say her name will be written in letters of gold. We just owe so much that we will never be able to repay.”