10/05/2026
[RECAP] Tribute by the ANC Free State Chairperson, Cde Mxolisi Dukwana at the funeral service of Comrade, Dr.P**e Matjoa
There are deaths that arrive quietly, like the fading of a distant drum. And then there are deaths that close an epoch. The passing of Dr P**e Matjoa on 1 May 2026 is such a moment. It is not merely the departure of a man. It is the extinguishing of one of the final living lanterns of a generation that carried the revolution in its bones, across borders, through prisons, into exile camps, onto Radio Freedom frequencies, into the trenches of Cuba, Tanzania, Lesotho, and finally back home to a liberated South Africa.
He belonged to that sacred fraternity history came to call the โTwelve Disciples of Mandela,โ a group of young men from Mangaung who slipped out of South Africa not in search of comfort, wealth, or acclaim, but in pursuit of freedom for a people not yet born. They were boys when they left. But exile ages a person quickly. It teaches discipline. It teaches loneliness. It teaches the unbearable burden of loving a country from afar while hearing reports of its suffering over crackling radio broadcasts.
Dr Matjoa never carried himself as a hero. Indeed, one of the most remarkable things about him was his refusal to inhabit the mythology others wished to place upon him.The Last Disciple of Nelson Mandela, is no more. It is indeed an end of an era.
In my interactions with Dr Matjoa, what struck me was not bitterness, nor self-importance, nor nostalgia. It was restraint. A profound and unsettling humility.
Here was a man who had traversed continents for the liberation struggle, trained in Cuba, worked in Tanzania, helped build underground ANC structures, served in the health sector in Lesotho, and yet spoke of these things almost reluctantly as though he had merely fulfilled an obligation owed to humanity.
In him lived a rare political ethic that has become increasingly endangered in democratic South Africa: the ethic of service without spectacle.
He represented the moral architecture of a liberation movement before it became consumed by factions, accumulation, gatekeeping, and careerism. Men and women of his generation entered politics prepared to lose everything. Today, too many enter politics expecting to gain everything. That is the contradiction haunting the ANC of our time. The movement that once produced selfless organisers, teachers, doctors, guerrillas, diplomats, and intellectuals now often appears trapped between its glorious memory and its disappointing present.
And yet, to speak honestly about these contradictions is not betrayal. It is fidelity to the truth. The revolutionary generation themselves taught us that criticism is an act of political love. They argued fiercely in camps, in underground cells, in conference halls, and in exile because they understood that movements decay when honesty disappears.
Dr Matjoa belonged to the tradition of Oliver Tambo - that patient school of leadership which believed that dignity, discipline, humility, and internationalism were not optional extras of the revolution but its very soul. They understood that liberation was not simply the transfer of political power; it was the reconstruction of the human spirit after centuries of humiliation.
That is why his death feels so heavy.
Because with each passing veteran, we lose not only memory, but also moral reference points. We lose witnesses to sacrifice. We lose living libraries. We lose people who can still distinguish between public office and personal entitlement.
And perhaps that is why this moment calls us not merely to mourn, but to reflect deeply on what the revolution now demands of us.
The revolution no longer asks us to cross borders secretly into exile camps. It asks us to rescue public institutions from decay. It asks us to defeat corruption without surrendering transformation. It asks us to rebuild ethical leadership. It asks young people to enter politics not as consumers of power, but as custodians of society.
To honour Dr Matjoa is therefore not only to praise him in death. It is to organise communities with integrity. It is to restore credibility to public service. It is to build local governments that work for the poor. It is to win municipalities not as trophies for factions, but as instruments for human dignity.
For what is the meaning of local government victories if refuse remains uncollected, libraries abandoned, clinics broken, youth unemployed, and communities spiritually exhausted? Electoral victory without ethical governance becomes hollow theatre. Dr Matjoaโs generation did not sacrifice for tenders. They sacrificed so that the child of a domestic worker and the son of a mine labourer could walk upright in their own land.
His life also reminds us that history is often built not by celebrities, but by quiet organisers whose names rarely appear in textbooks. The revolution survives because somewhere, in every generation, there are still ordinary people prepared to do extraordinary work without demanding applause.
And so we bid farewell to one of the last disciples.
A son of Mangaung.
A servant of Africa.
A doctor of the people.
A revolutionary forged by exile.
A man who understood that leadership is not domination, but duty.
Perhaps history will remember him softly. But those who encountered him know that in his silence there was conviction; in his humility, immense strength; and in his life, a lesson South Africa desperately needs again.
May his passing trouble our conscience.
May it awaken our politics from moral sleep.
May it remind us that freedom was purchased at tremendous cost.
And may we yet prove worthy of the generation that carried liberation on its wounded shoulders and still returned home believing in humanity.
Hamba kahle, Dr P**e Matjoa.
The last disciple has joined the ancestors.
But the unfinished work of justice remains with us.
