Helen Suzman was born on 7 November 1917 in Germiston, South Africa. She studied as an economist and statistician at the university of Witwatersrand, during which time she also left South Africa to travel Europe before returning. On her return she fell in love with Dr Moses Suzman, got married and then went back to finish her degree. She then worked as a statistician for the South Africa's War Supplies Board, after which she returned to the University of Witwatersrand to lecture. It was at this point her political career started when she became a member of the South African Institute of Race Relations.
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So in 1953 she made a move from teaching to parliament. She was elected to the House of Assembly as a member of the Unity Party. At a later stage, in 1959, she switched to the liberal Progressive Party, where she was the sole member of Parliament for the Houghton constituency. She is then best known from this time on as the sole parliamentarian that was unequivocally opposed to apartheid. She ran this race alone from 1961 to 1974. For this period she was harassed by political party members and police, one of the techniques she developed for handling the police tapping her phone line was to blow a whistle into the mouth piece of the phone. One of her famous responses was to a minister that accused her of embarrassing South Africa by the questions she asked and her response to this was, "It is not my questions that embarrass South Africa; it is your answers". Later as the opposition against apartheid grew the Progressive party joined the Reformed party and become the Progressive Federal Party. It was at this stage then that Helen Suzman was joined by others such as Colin Eglin in the fight against apartheid.
So in total Helen Suzman was in parliament for 36 years, from 1953 to 1989. She was also known for her frequent visits to Nelson Mandela while he was in prison. She was also present with him when he signed the constitution in 1996. Helen Suzman made a remarkable contribution to South Africa and the people under oppression at the time. She has been recognized for this in many different ways. She was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize , she was awarded 27 honorary doctorates from Universities around the world. She was even made an Honorary Dame Commander of the Civil Division of the Order of the British Empire in 1989.Helen Suzman died peacefully on the morning of 1 January 2009 at the age of 91.
While Helen Suzman was one of the main activists of the time, she was not the only one. There are many named and unnamed activists. All of us in South Africa I feel need to know her story and understand her drive within parliament at a time that it was not safe for her to speak out. We should all be grateful to Helen Suzman for her efforts in parliament. If you know some other from the time that opposed the parliament of the time and fought against apartheid why not give them a brief overview in the comment below so everyone reading the post can become aware of them !
There are a number of books about and by Helen Suzman. The one higher in the blog "In No Uncertain Terms: A South African Memoir " was written by Helen Suzman. If you are interested you should also check out the following books:
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