Helen Suzman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Helen Suzman | |
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| In office 1953 – 1989 |
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| Born | November 7, 1917 Germiston, Gauteng, South Africa |
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| Political party | United Party Progressive Party Progressive Reform Party Progressive Federal Party |
| Apartheid in South Africa |
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| Events and Projects |
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Sharpeville Massacre · Soweto uprising |
| Organisations |
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ANC · IFP · AWB · Black Sash · CCB |
| People |
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P.W Botha · Oupa Gqozo · DF Malan |
| Places |
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Bantustan · District Six · Robben Island |
| Other aspects |
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Apartheid laws · Freedom Charter |
Helen Suzman, born Helen Gavronsky (7 November 1917 in Germiston, Gauteng, South Africa), was an anti-apartheid activist and politician. She studied as an economist and statistician at Witwatersrand University. Suzman was the daughter of Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants.
She married Dr. Moses Suzman when she was 20, and had two daughters with him before returning to university as a lecturer in 1944. She gave up teaching for politics, being elected to Parliament in 1953 as a member of the United Party. She switched to the liberal Progressive Party in 1959, and represented the Houghton constituency as that party's sole member of parliament, and the sole parliamentarian unequivocally opposed to apartheid, from 1961 to 1974.
Suzman was noted for her strong public criticism of the governing National Party's policies of apartheid at a time when this was unusual amongst whites, and found herself even more of an outsider by virtue of being an English-speaking Jewish woman in a parliament dominated by Calvinist Afrikaner men. She was once accused by a minister of asking questions in parliament that embarrassed South Africa, to which she replied: "It is not my questions that embarrass South Africa, it is your answers".[1]
Later, as parliamentary white opposition to apartheid grew, the Progressive Party was renamed the Progressive Federal Party, and Suzman was joined in parliament by notable liberal colleagues such as Colin Eglin. She spent a total of 36 years in parliament.
She visited Nelson Mandela numerous times in prison, and was at his side when he signed the new constitution in 1996.
She was voted #24 on the Top 100 Great South Africans.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
Suzman, Helen. In No Uncertain Terms: A South African Memoir. New York: Knopf, 1993. ISBN 0679409858
[edit] External links
- Helen Suzman (BBC radio programme)
- Helen Suzman honoured in Côte Saint-Luc, Quebec Canada
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