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Kader Asmal remembered by South African ambassador at special event in capital

Last update - Saturday, October 15, 2011, 10:14 By Chinedu Onyejelem

A special commemoration was held last week to celebrate the life and times of a great South African-Irish leader, who died last June.

Professor Kader Asmal – described by South African Ambassador to Ireland Jeremiah Ndou as an “Irish humanist, academic and activist” – was remembered for his remarkable contributions to both Ireland and South Africa.
“Professor Asmal made an exceptional contribution to the struggle for liberation in South Africa and sacrificed much of his life to ensure the realisation of freedom and democracy for all South Africans,” said Ambassador Ndou at the event, which he organised in association with members of the former Irish anti-apartheid movement.
“As a leader,” he continued, “Prof Asmal epitomised a spirit of a particular era in South Africa’s history, a time imbued with a deep spirit of human solidarity and an abiding sense of selflessness in advancing this vision.
“This was an era that mobilised millions of South Africans to pursue the vision of a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist, just and prosperous South Africa.”
Among his achievements, which were highlighted by the ambassador, included the writing of South Africa’s democratic constitution.
In 1999, just five years after the end of apartheid, he was appointed Minister of Education. In the post he worked for a “quality access to education for all South Africans and took a personal interest in the development of the National Plan for Higher Education”.
Prof Asmal, who was head of the Law Department at Trinity College during his 27 years of exile in Ireland, was as a man of the people who was held in high esteem by the Irish, the ambassador added.
Among Prof Asmal’s other contributions are the important role he played “in the formation of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland” as well as being “one of the founders of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties in 1976”.
Among those who attended the celebration were his family, Minister Joan Burton, members of the diplomatic corps, friends and colleagues.


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