The name of Dr Gomolemo Mokae, slain Black Consciousness leader, will be immortalized for generations to come. The announcement was made during the memorial service held at Freedom Park in Pretoria.
Console Tleane, a top official at Freedom Park who addressed the dignified service in honour of the “People’s Doctor”, said Dr Mokae’s name has to be engraved on the remembrance wall at Freedom Park as a fitting tribute to his enigmatic legacy.
“The bullet may have been that of a criminal, but it’s the capitalist system that has produced and cheapened our lives,” he said.
BC activist Veli Mbele ka Sompisi, who was in charge of directing the programme, also made an impassioned case for the immortalization of Dr Mokae’s name, saying:
“This institution is a repository of our people’s memory. You are therefore given the programme as an item of history. One of the things that defined Dr Mokae was his love for Black people,” he said.
Dr Richard Lebethe, who said he was inspired by Dr Mokae to follow medicine, said: “Everyone has to serve their purpose wherever they are. Gomolemo liked himself for who he was and remained in touch with his people.”
The memorial service was attended mainly by BC activists and a large contingency of professional artists. Apart from medicine, Dr Mokae was a prolific writer of TV plays and a celebrated novelist who wrote in both English and his mother tongue, Setswana.
One of his books, Masego, is a prescribed literature reading for Grade 12 learners in SA. Dr Mokae also penned authorized biography of his friend and former apartheid era death-row prisoner, Robert McBride, an under-cover operative for the then outlawed ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. McBride was released from police custody as part of the negotiated settlement to end apartheid in the early 90’s.
Dr Mokae’s decomposing body was discovered by Neighbours several days in his Garankuwa home north of Pretoria in early March. He was hit with three bullets – two on either hands and a third in the middle of his chest, according to the police.
