Helen Suzman

HELEN SUZMAN did think of leaving Johannesburg. Once. For five minutes in 1948 when the National Party came into power. "I thought of going to England or the States," says the former politician, anti-apartheid and human rights campaigner.

Says Suzman: "Johannesburg is vibrant, the weather is excellent, the northern suburbs have lovely gardens, and there are excellent shopping malls."

Suzman was born in Germiston, and at the age of five moved to Johannesburg. She has lived in the city ever since - just less than 78 years in all.

"People in Johannesburg are hospitable and interested in others. If they say they want to get together with you, they phone you and make a time. In Cape Town they say they want to see you, and then they never phone."

"Of course, for 36 years as a politician, I lived half the year in Cape Town, but I was always glad to get back to Johannesburg," she adds.

She entered politics in 1953 and retired in 1989, with 28 honorary doctorates and two nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1993 she published her autobiography, In No Uncertain Terms.

Suzman vigorously opposed the National Party in her 36 years in parliament, six of those as the only woman MP and 13 years as the only representative of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party. In the 18 years that former president Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island, she visited him frequently and fought for equality for the black prisoners.

In his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela says of Suzman: "It was an odd and wonderful sight to see this courageous woman peering into our cells and strolling around our courtyard. She was the first and only woman ever to grace our cells."

Nowadays Suzman, at 83, takes up specific issues. "I am involved in the decriminalising dagga issue, [and in the cases of] Henrietta Mqokomiso who was relocated to a piece of land in Diepsloot after her house was demolished in Alexandra and poet Mzwakhe Mbuli, who is serving a 13-year sentence for armed robbery and of whose innocence I am convinced. I am only involved peripherally in politics."

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