Jeremy Patrick Cronin | |
|---|---|
| Deputy Minister of Public Works | |
| In office 12 June 2012 –June 2019 | |
| President | Cyril Ramaphosa |
| Deputy Minister of Transport | |
| In office 11 May 2009 –12 June 2012 | |
| President | Jacob Zuma |
| Succeeded by | Lydia Sindiswe Chikunga |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 12 September 1949 |
| Nationality | South African |
| Political party | South African Communist Party |
| Other political affiliations | African National Congress |
| Residence(s) | Cape Town,South Africa |
| Alma mater | University of Cape Town (BA) Sorbonne University (MA) |
Jeremy Patrick Cronin (born 12 September 1949) is a South African writer,author,and noted poet. A longtime activist in politics,Cronin is a member of the South African Communist Party and a former member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress. [1] He served as the South African Deputy Minister of Public Works from 2012 until his retirement in 2019. [2]
Cronin was brought up in a White middle-class Roman Catholic family in Rondebosch in Cape Town,South Africa. During adolescence,he considered the idea of entering the priesthood. After a year's military service,when he was conscripted in the South African Navy,Cronin won a bursary to study at the University of Cape Town in 1968;there he became a member of the Radical Student Society and was subsequently recruited into then-banned South African Communist Party (SACP).
In the early 1970s,Cronin studied for his Master's degree in Philosophy in France and returned to South Africa,where he began lecturing in the Philosophy department at the University of Cape Town.
Cronin's work in the propaganda unit of the SACP brought him to the attention of the South African Bureau of State Security;he was arrested on charges under the Terrorism and Internal Security Acts and tried in the Cape Town Supreme Court in September 1976,along with David Rabkin and his wife Sue. [3] The charges included conspiring with members of the African National Congress (also a banned organisation) and the SACP,and preparing and distributing pamphlets on these organisations' behalf (activities commemorated in Cronin's poem "A Step Away from Them," modelled on a poem of the same title by American poet Frank O'Hara). Cronin pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment (1976–1983). [1] He served his time in Pretoria Local,or Pretoria Prison,which was part of the Pretoria Central Prison complex,along with Denis Goldberg,Raymond Suttner and others. He participated in the planning of a daring escape in 1979 by Tim Jenkin,Stephen Lee and Alex Moumbaris. [3] His wife Anne Marie died of a brain tumour during his imprisonment. [4]
Cronin's first book of poetry,Inside,was published in 1984 following his release from prison. [5] Subsequent volumes include Even the Dead (1997) and Inside and Out (1999). His most recent collection,More Than A Casual Contact,was published in 2006. Among his best known poems is "Motho Ke Motho Ka Batho Babang",whose title is taken from the Sotho aphorism "A person is a person because of other people".
Following Cronin's release from prison he began working with the United Democratic Front (UDF),founded in 1983,where he worked as the editor of its theoretical journal Isizwe (The Nation) . He was also involved in various kinds of popular education,but in the late 1980s,increased harassment from the security forces forced him and his wife to leave South Africa and move first to London,then to Lusaka in Zambia,where he worked closely with Joe Slovo for the ANC/SACP alliance. In the 1990s,he worked in the SACP head office in Johannesburg,where he was deputy general secretary of the party. He became a member of parliament in 1999. His interviews with Helena Sheehan [6] in 2001 and 2002 met with a storm of controversy,because of his left critique of the ANC during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki. He was forced to apologise to the ANC in 2002. [7] He delivered the Chris Hani memorial lecture,titled Why South Africa will never be like Zimbabwe,in Durban on 4 May 2008. [8] On 10 May 2009,President Jacob Zuma appointed him Deputy Minister of Transport,and in 2012 he moved to become Deputy Minister of Public Works. In May 2019,he retired from parliament and government office.
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served as the second president of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008, when he resigned at the request of his party, the African National Congress (ANC). Before that, he was deputy president under Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1999.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by the governing National Party under the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950. The Communist Party was reconstituted underground and re-launched as the SACP in 1953, participating in the struggle to end the apartheid system. It is a member of the ruling Tripartite Alliance alongside the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and through this it influences the South African government. The party's Central Committee is the party's highest decision-making structure.
Govan Archibald Mvunyelwa Mbeki was a South African politician, military commander, Communist leader who served as the Secretary of Umkhonto we Sizwe, at its inception in 1961. He was also the son of Chief Sikelewu Mbeki and Johanna Mahala and also the father of the former South African president Thabo Mbeki and political economist Moeletsi Mbeki. He was a leader of the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress. After the Rivonia Trial, he was imprisoned (1963–1987) on charges of terrorism and treason, together with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Raymond Mhlaba, Ahmed Kathrada and other eminent ANC leaders, for their role in the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). He was sometimes mentioned by his nickname "Oom Gov".
Raymond Mphakamisi Mhlaba OMSG was an anti-apartheid activist, Communist and leader of the African National Congress (ANC) also as well the first premier of the Eastern Cape. Mhlaba spent 25 years of his life in prison. Well known for being sentenced, along with Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu and others in the Rivonia Trial, he was an active member of the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP) all his adult life. His kindly manner brought him the nickname "Oom Ray".
Chris Hani, born Martin Thembisile Hani, was the leader of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). He was a fierce opponent of the apartheid government, and was assassinated by Janusz Waluś, a Polish immigrant and sympathiser of the Conservative opposition on 10 April 1993, during the unrest preceding the transition to democracy.
Joe Slovo was a South African politician, and an opponent of the apartheid system. A Marxist-Leninist, he was a long-time leader and theorist in the South African Communist Party (SACP), a leading member of the African National Congress (ANC), and a commander of the ANC's military wing uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK).
Charles Nqakula is a South African politician who served as Minister of Defence from September 2008 to 2009. He also served as Minister for Safety and Security from May 2002 to September 2008.
Ronald Kasrils is a South African politician, Marxist revolutionary, guerrilla and military commander. He was Minister for Intelligence Services from 27 April 2004 to 25 September 2008. He was a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1987 to 2007 as well as a member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party (SACP) from December 1986 to 2007.
Geraldine Joslyn Fraser-Moleketi is a South African politician who was the Minister of Public Service and Administration from June 1999 to September 2008. Before that, from July 1996 to June 1999, she was Minister of Welfare and Population Development. She represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 1994 to 2008 and is a former deputy chairperson of the South African Communist Party (SACP).
The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC) is the party's chief executive organ. It is elected every five years at the party’s national conference; the executive committee, in turn, elects a National Working Committee for day-to-day decision-making responsibilities. At the NEC's head is the president of the ANC, and it also contains the other so-called "Top Seven" leaders : the deputy president, chairperson, secretary-general, two deputy secretaries-general and treasurer-general.
The African National Congress (ANC) has been the governing party of the Republic of South Africa since 1994. The ANC was founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein and is the oldest liberation movement in Africa.
Janusz Jakub Waluś is a Polish right-wing extremist convicted of the 1993 assassination of Chris Hani, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). He held dual Polish-South African citizenship from 1986 until his South African citizenship was revoked in 2017.
Raymond Suttner is South African activist, academic, journalist and public figure.
Godfrey Phumulo Masualle is a South African politician from the Eastern Cape who has represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly since May 2019. He was Deputy Minister of Public Enterprises from May 2019 to March 2023, and before that he was the sixth Premier of the Eastern Cape from May 2014 to May 2019.
Buti Kgwaridi Manamela is a South African politician who is currently serving as the Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology since October 2017. He was formerly the Deputy Minister in the Presidency from 2014 to 2017, and he has represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly since May 2009.
Chris Hani, General-Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), was assassinated by right-wing extremist Janusz Waluś on 10 April 1993. The assassination, later tied to members within the Conservative Party, occurred outside Hani's home in Dawn Park during a peak period of progressive anti-apartheid momentum in South Africa. After the assassination, racially fuelled riots drew international attention to the instability of the political division within South Africa, leading to an inclusive national democratic election in April 1994, won by the African National Congress (ANC). Waluś and his accomplice Clive Derby-Lewis were sentenced to death after their arrest in 1993; the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
David Rabkin was a South African anti-apartheid activist known for publishing subversive pamphlets. He served seven years of a ten-year sentence for his anti-apartheid activities. After his accidental death during military training in Angola, he received a hero's burial in Luanda.
Loretta Jacobus, formerly known as Loretta Bastardo-Ibanez, is a South African politician who served as Deputy Minister of Correctional Services from February 2006 to May 2009. She represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 2004 to 2013.
Brian Bunting was a South African activist and journalist known as a stalwart of the South African Communist Party (SACP). He represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 1994 to 1999.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
