IN MEMORIAM

Sibongile Khumalo

[BA Hons 1983, HDipPM 1984]

1957-2021

In the sleeve notes of her 2005 eponymously titled album, beloved vocalist and musician Sibongile Khumalo writes about a formative experience she had around the age of 13, when her father made her listen to Constance Magogo kaDinuzulu, the Zulu princess and musician known for her prowess as singer and composer. “My dad made me sit at her feet to listen to her play ugubhu and sing. At the time it did not make sense to me, but I had to obey. I thought he was being very unkind to me because all the other children were out in the yard playing. It must have been destiny. In my professional years the music came back and it began to make sense.”

Khumalo was introduced to music at the age of eight. Guided predominantly by her father’s influence, Sibongile studied violin, singing, drama and dance under Emily Motsieloa, a pianist and leader of an all-women’s band and influential musical personality in township circles. Her parents Grace and Khabi Mngoma were active community members involved in cultural upliftment, and instilled in her an abiding love and appreciation for South African music.

Her mother, Grace Mngoma (née Mondlane) worked as a nursing sister. Her father, Professor Khabi Mngoma (DMus honoris causa 1987), was an historian and professor of music at the University of Zululand, honoured by Wits in recognition of his service to the culture of the nation and its music.

She inherited her father’s passion for education and earned two undergraduate degrees from Wits and University of Zululand — she received honorary doctorates from the University of Zululand, Rhodes, and Unisa and will posthumously receive one from Wits. She held teaching and administration positions at the Federated Union of Black Artists Academy and Madimba Institute of African Music in Soweto.

In 1993, she won the Standard Bank Young Artist Award at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival and she released her debut album in 1996, Ancient Evening. Over the next two decades she released a steady stream of albums, earning four South African Music Awards and garnering three Vita Awards for her stage performances. She was awarded the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver in 2008 in recognition of her ‘’excellent contribution to the development of South African art and culture in the musical fields of jazz and opera’’. In 2013 the Naledi Theatre Awards bestowed Khumalo with the Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her talents in acting, opera, jazz, teaching and being a strong activist for the advancement of theatre in South Africa.

Her work transcended genre, moving easily between traditional South African indigenous music, to opera and jazz, with equal aplomb. She sang in major venues around the world including the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican Centre, the Kennedy Centre in Washington and Ronnie Scott’s in London.

Ahead of her performance at the Joy of Jazz Festival in 2019, Johannesburg, Khumalo said that no matter the symbolism, her main commitment was to the singularity of her own voice. “While exposing yourself and opening yourself up to what is out there, it is also important to remain true to yourself, so that even when you allow yourself to be influenced by others, you retain an identity that clearly defines you,” she said. “It is the truth in what you express, and how you express it, that is paramount.”

Khumalo died on 28 January at the age of 63, preceded in death by her husband Siphiwe in 2005. She leaves behind her daughter Ayanda; two sons Tshepho and Siyabonga; and bereft music lovers.

Sources: Wits archives, The New York Times, The Conversation

Andrew Williamson

[BA 1963, LLB 1965, HDipTax Law 1974]

1942-2021

Andrew Philip Faure Williamson, who died aged 78 on 12 January, distinguished himself both as a lawyer in several key anti-apartheid trials in South Africa and as a labour and employment lawyer of significance.

Born in South Africa to appeal court judge Arthur Faure Williamson and Erna Templin, Williamson married Patricia Jill Denoon in 1968. She was awarded an OBE in 2013 for her charitable work on human rights and the rule of law in South Africa.

Williamson began his career at Bowman Gilfillan, having studied at Wits where he graduated magna cum laude. He became a partner, specialising in commercial litigation and the defence of anti-apartheid activists. His strong opposition to apartheid persuaded him to leave South Africa in 1978 and start a new life in the UK.

In 1978 he requalified as an English solicitor, becoming a partner at Lovell White & King in 1982. He focused on employment and labour law, setting up the firm’s employment practice, which became a prominent European practice. He was a founder member and the chairman of the City of London Law Society Employment Subcommittee from 1993 to 1996.

From retirement in 2002, Williamson channelled much of his intellectual energy into nature and climate crises. He began to correspond with the noted environmentalist, Jonathon Porritt, and was supportive of Porritt’s organisation Forum for the Future.

He is survived by his wife Jill, daughter Jessica, son Matthew, granddaughters Lyra and Rosie and grandson Nathaniel.

Sources: John Battersby, Daily Maverick, The Guardian

Belinda Bozzoli

[BA 1967, BA Hons 1970]

1945-2020

Professor Belinda Bozzoli, distinguished academic and strategic leader, passed away on 5 October 2020 after a long battle with cancer.

She was the daughter of former Wits Vice-Chancellor Guerino “Boz” Bozzoli (BSc Eng 1934, DSc honoris causa 1948, LLD honoris causa 1978) and remained a proud alumna. She was appointed to the university’s top position for research in 2003 at the age of 63 after starting her career in the Faculty of Humanities, moving through the ranks as head of the Department of Sociology in the late 1990s before leading the entire School of Social Sciences from 2001 until 2003. She completed her MA and PhD at the University of Sussex. At the time of her appointment as Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research at Wits, she said: “I was a student at Wits and it’s like home. It’s a place which elicits loyalty and even when it behaves badly, it still manages to draw affection.”

Professor Bozzoli contributed to the prestige and reputation of the university through her academic achievements and institutional roles. An excellent academic administrator, Professor Bozzoli was awarded an A-rating by the National Research Foundation (NRF) in 2006, making her the first sociologist in the country to obtain this rigorously peer-reviewed ranking. She was committed to creating an enabling environment for academics and was instrumental in the establishment of six 21st-century research institutes at Wits. She served as the acting director of WISER, the pre-eminent interdisciplinary research institute in the humanities and social sciences in South Africa.

She was an Associate Fellow at Yale University, a Research Fellow at Cambridge and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in France, a visiting Fellow to Oxford and served as a board member of the NRF. She authored three internationally published books and was editor or co-editor of a further four and the author of numerous articles. In 1991 her book Women of Phokeng, which drew on the oral histories of 22 black women from a small town near Rustenburg, won her the Human Sciences Research Council’s Top Researcher Award.

In 2014 Professor Bozzoli stood for election to the National Assembly as 77th on the Democratic Alliance’s national list. At the election she won a seat in the National Assembly. She became the Shadow Minister of Education and Training. She was re-elected to Parliament in 2019 and was made Shadow Minister for the newly created Higher Education, Science and Innovation portfolio. DA MP and chief whip Natasha Mazzone said that as an MP Bozzoli was “deeply committed” to her work. “She was kind, smart, knowledgeable, a voice of reason and love.”

Professor Bozzoli is survived by her husband, acclaimed historian Professor Charles van Onselen (BA Hons 1971), and their three children Jessica (BA DA 2002, PDM 2005, MA 2009), Gareth (BA Hons 1999, MA 2001) and Matthew (BA Hons 2007, MA 2010). When asked how she managed a family juggling life as a top researcher and administrator she said: “Isn’t it what all women do?”

Source: Wits University and Wits Review archives, Wikipedia, Daily Maverick

Christian Peeters

[BSc 1978, BSc Hons 1979, PhD 1984]

1956-2020

Christian Peeters was an internationally recognised and celebrated myrmecologist, born in Belgium on 30 April 1956. He passed away suddenly in Paris on 1 September 2020 at the age of 64.

Professor Peeters’s father, Paul Peeters, and mother, Paulette Peeters, immigrated to South Africa in 1970 with their children Christian, Annie and Françoise from Belgium. The family lived in Mountainview-Observatory, Johannesburg and Christian matriculated from Marist Brothers College. His father was an electrical engineer and was the director of sales for Schindler Elevators, a Swiss company. In 1978 the company shut its offices in South Africa and repatriated Professor Peeters’s father. The Peeters family moved to Lucerne, Switzerland and he remained at Wits to complete his studies.

Professor Peeters was determined to become an academic zoologist when he began his undergraduate studies at Wits in 1975. With Professor Robin Crewe as his supervisor he graduated with a PhD in Zoology, and remained in contact with Professor Crewe for the remainder of his life on academic collaborations and as friends.

During his studies he was active in adventurous outdoor activities as a member of the Wits Mountain Club, and Wilderness Leadership School, and he was one of the climbers who went out every September to ring Cape Vulture chicks in the Magaliesberg and other mountainous localities for the Vulture Study Group led by Peter Mundy and John Ledger (BSc 1965, BSc Hons 1966, PhD 1976).

After his PhD, Professor Peeters went to Australia to work as a postdoc at the University of New South Wales, with Ross Crozier. He later moved to Nagoya in Japan to work with Yoshiaki Ito and then to Wurzburg, Germany to work with Professor Berthold Karl Hölldobler. Settling in Paris, he was Research Professor at the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences in the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Sorbonne University, and Director of Research at CNRS, the French National Scientific Research Agency.

Professor Peeters’s impact in myrmecology started with the discoveries that he made as a PhD student, finding that primitive ponerine ants could lose the queen caste and have colonies headed by mated, workers for which he and Bill Brown of Cornell University coined the term gamergates (married workers). Recently he turned his attention to the ant genera Melissotarsus and Rhopalomastix, which chew tunnels in healthy wood to accommodate their scale insect symbionts and are the only ants in which adults spin silk used in nest construction. The strength of ants in lifting loads led to an interest in the biomechanics of load transport in insects. The queenless ponerine ant Streblognathus peetersi was named after him.

When asked what he planned to do post retirement he replied: “Continue with my research of course!” After his death, his students and colleagues paid tribute to his impact on their lives and research. Their admiration and respect for him was evident in comments on his insights, thoughtfulness and kindness.

Professor Peeters is survived by his sisters and their families in Australia, Annie and Bryan Downes; Françoise and John Schilter and sons Nathaniel and Nicolas; and by his partner Naret Phansua and extended family in Thailand.

Source: Nigel Gericke (BSc 1978, BSc Hons 1979, MBBCh 1984)

Jack Lampert

[MBBCh 1958]

Dr Jack Arthur Lampert matriculated from Parktown Boy’s High School in Johannesburg aged 16 years. He completed his internship at the Johannesburg General Hospital and developed an interest in obstetrics and gynaecology. He served as registrar at the Bridgman Memorial Hospital in Brixton (now Garden City Clinic) and became a member of the Fellowship of the College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of South Africa in 1965. Soon after he joined his long-time friend Dr Les Picker (MBBCh 1959). He took up the position of Chief Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Vaal Med, moving to Vanderbijlpark in 1985. After 17 very successful years in this position he retired in 2002 and moved to Fish Hoek, Cape Town.

Dr Lampert loved medicine, and often said there was not a day in his working life that he did not want to go to work. He had many interests, among them target shooting and fishing. His remarkable acumen, and his quick wit remained with him.

A few years after Penelope Machanik, his wife of 52 years, passed away, he returned to spend the last five years of his life in Johannesburg, where he died on 22 July 2020. He leaves his partner Gail Wilson (BSc Physio 1968) and three sons.

Source: Gail Wilson

Coomarasamy N Pillay

[MBBCh 1954]

1929-2020

Dr Coomarasamy Nithianathan “CN” Pillay died at the age of 90 on Christmas Day 2020. He worked for decades at the RK Khan Hospital and was key in the formation of the Chatsworth Regional Hospice.

Dr Pillay was born on 10 July 1929 in Greenwood Park, the child of Kistan and Amurtham Pillay. His father worked in a managerial position at the Coronation Brick and Tile Company in Briardene. His paternal grandfather, Kumarasamy Kistan (KK) Pillay, came from a wealthy family of tobacco farmers in India. He wrote exams to enter high school at a government school in Umgeni Road and was accepted to Sastri College.

In Standard 7, he received a book prize The Healing Knife by George Sava, which was his first introduction to surgery and this moulded his life. Under a special permit, he was able to study medicine at Wits. He applied for an internship at McCord Zulu Mission Hospital. In 1954, Chief Albert Luthuli was critically ill and was brought to the hospital after suffering a heart attack. Dr Pillay was tasked with spending the night at Chief Luthuli’s bedside, recording his blood pressure every 10 minutes and regulating the intravenous infusion accordingly.

Dr Pilllay went into private practice in Avoca, Newlands and Harding. He furthered his studies at the Royal College of Surgeons in London and the Edinburgh Royal College of Surgeons. He had 30 years of unbroken service at RK Khan Hospital where he retired as principal surgeon in 1992. He became president of the Natal Coastal Branch of the Medical Association of South Africa, was chairperson of the board of Emergency Medical and Rescue Service of KwaZulu-Natal and served as trustee on various community organisations.

He received a Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Surgeons of South Africa in 2007; as well as a dedicated service in medicine award from the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa and the Mahatma Gandhi award for humanitarian service to the community.

He was described as “the quintessential role-model — high on morals, a stickler for detail, and a technically gifted surgeon. A man who paid close attention to detail, meticulous planning, passion for patients’ rights and commitment to service. The standard set by the surgical departments at RK Khan Hospital was to become the benchmark for other surgical departments and units to emulate.”

He married Dayanithy (Babse) Pillay in 1956 and she died in 2016. He is survived by his three daughters Jayashree, Thikambari and Udeshni and two grandchildren.

Sources: Sunday Tribune and The Witness

Linda Givon

[Gold Medal, 2007]

1936-2020

Often referred to as the doyenne of South African art and founder of the Goodman Gallery, Linda Givon passed away on 5 October 2020 at the age of 84.

Givon was born in Johannesburg on 2 August 1936, to Morris and Hetty Finger, who had immigrated to South Africa from Eastern Europe. She read towards a BA in 1954, but travelled to England before its completion and obtained a diploma in acting and teaching from the London School of Dramatic Art. During the 1960s she trained at the Grosvenor Gallery in London under the tutelage of its founder Eric Estorick and returned to South Africa in 1966.

At the age of 30, Givon opened the Goodman Gallery. Located initially in Hyde Park, it soon gained a reputation for exhibiting work which confronted issues unlike other galleries at the time that exhibited “pretty scenes of life in the townships”. Thirty years later the gallery moved to the heart of Rosebank in 1996. In 2018 Givon sold the space and its brand at an enormous price. Through her work at the Goodman, she brought an unapologetic vision.

Givon was on the boards of community art centres such as the Johannesburg Art Foundation and the Ainslie Remembrance Trust, government bodies such as the National Arts Council and heritage sites such as Constitution Hill. She saw the need to invest in the future, making provision for educational bursaries at many educational institutions. Over the years she supported the Funda Centre in Soweto, and helped raise funds to rebuild the Artists Proof Studio, a teaching facility for young artists, after it burned down.

There are many instances throughout her career of charitable giving in which she facilitated donations, gifts, sponsorships and patronage from others through her determination to “grow the arts” or enable a project. She personally donated funds to the Children’s Hospital Trust and inspired close friends to donate over R5 million. She received the 2008 Inyathelo Philanthropy Merit award. At Wits she made donations to the Wits Art Museum, and to other Wits art galleries, many of which reflect important moments in South African art history. This was essential at a time when the university’s budget for the acquisition of contemporary art had been suspended. In 2016 Off the Wall: An 80 th birthday celebration was mounted in her honour. She donated funds towards projects such as the library mural by Cyril Coetzee and the Rock Art Research Institute. In 2007 she was awarded a Gold Medal by the university, in recognition of her immense contribution to South African art.

She leaves her brother Michael, daughter Lee and son Robert and their families.

Sources: Wits University archives; Robyn Sassen, New Frame

David Edwin Proctor

[BSc Eng 1962, PhD 1977]

1932-2020

Dr David Proctor died in Johannesburg on 26 September 2020 of complications following surgery at the age of 88. He had spent his career at the National Institute for Telecommunications Research (NITR) of the CSIR. Born in Johannesburg and educated at Kearsney College, the young Proctor moved around the country, as his father was a Methodist minister.

After he left school, Dr Proctor’s interest in radio and electronics led him to work as a technician at the NITR but it was clear that he had the academic ability to attend university. The Faculty of Engineering at Wits had set up a part-time process by which ex-servicemen were able to complete their degrees over six years. And so, after spreading the first two years of the degree over four, while continuing to work at the NITR, he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and immediately became a research officer at the NITR.

In 1967 Dr Proctor established a new research programme with the purpose of measuring and characterising radio emissions that occur during lightning activity. In doing this, he was following in the footsteps of Basil Schonland (DSc honoris causa 1957) and David J Malan who had made discoveries in the field of lightning research when based at the Bernard Price Institute of Geophysical Research at Wits. Dr Proctor’s dedicated and almost single-handed research programme became his life’s work and over more than 30 years he established himself as a leading authority in the field of lightning investigation using both radio and radar techniques.

Dr Proctor was an extremely nice man. As is so often the case with people who don’t set out to beat their own drum, his remarkable achievements in the fields of radio science and geophysics went unsung almost everywhere except in the closest confines of the NITR and among those scientists around the world whose fields overlapped with his.

He married Judy Stone in 1963 and they had four sons, all engineers.

Source: Brian Austin

Lynn Gillis

[MBBCh 1948, MMed 1956]

1924-2020

Professor Lynn Gillis, who died aged 96, was founding head in 1962 of the department of psychiatry and mental health at the University of Cape Town and played an integral role in changing the custodial care to a comprehensive service for the region.

He initiated groundbreaking community services and clinics, unusually led by nurses. Under his guidance a day hospital was established, and a psychiatric social club promoting continuity of care for patients in the community, with outreach provisions to destigmatise mental illness. At Valkenberg Hospital and Alexandra rehabilitation centre he courageously defied apartheid segregation by integrating staff across wards.

Professor Gillis was born to emigrant parents in Kroonstad, South Africa, a small town where his father, Julius, a dentist, grew competition prize roses as a hobby, and his mother, Annie (née Lynn), a concert pianist, gave music lessons. This background grounded Lynn’s fluent Afrikaans and underpinned his initiatives in social psychiatry. When World War II broke out, he served in makeshift hospitals in northern Africa and Italy. Between 1945 and 1962 he worked at Tara Hospital, a pioneering mental health facility in Johannesburg, taking a break in the 1950s to hold positions at the Maudsley Hospital in London, and becoming a founding member of the Royal College of Psychiatry.

These formative experiences bore fruit when he was recruited in 1962 to fill the position of head of department of psychiatry and mental health at the University of Cape Town. He remained professor of psychiatry until his retirement in 1989, when he became professor emeritus.

Professor Gillis won many awards and held esteemed positions, among them president of the SA National Council for Mental Health and director of the South African Medical Research Council’s Clinical Psychiatry Research Unit, which was key in initiating a series of studies and mentoring a number of careers.

Ever curious, Professor Gillis was drawn to psychoanalysis, and in retirement pursued Buddhism, studied sculpture and created austere carvings in marble and rare woods. An avid mountaineer, he remained healthy and agile, lucid and fiercely independent to the end of his full and fulfilled professional and artistic life.

Shirley (née Lurie), whom he married in 1950, died in 2015. He is survived by their daughter, Jenny, four grandchildren, Josh, Gabrielle, Jason and Danielle, and three great-grandchildren, Nomi, Yael and Lev.

Sources: Joan Raphael-Leff, The Guardian

Irvin Alexander Lampert

[MBBCh 1964]

1941-2020

Dr Irvin Alexander Lampert, “Irv” as he became known to his friends and colleagues, was born in Johannesburg in November 1941. He matriculated from King Edward VII School in Johannesburg and entered Wits Medical School in January 1959 and ultimately specialised as a pathologist. Dr Lampert worked briefly as a junior doctor in Johannesburg and in the late 1960s left for London. In 1971 he married Dr Jo Boxer. He was treated for bladder cancer, which eventually resulted in renal failure, and he died on 17 October 2020. Jo and their two children and two grandchildren survive him.

On his arrival in England, he first took up a post at the Nottingham University Hospital where he was mentored by Prof Ken Weinbren. He attained his Diploma in Clinical Pathology at Hammersmith Hospital, in London, where he made lifelong friends. He subsequently gained his Membership of the Royal College of Pathology, becoming an FRCPath (Fellow). He was a senior lecturer at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, and at Hammersmith Hospital, and retained this honorary post until retirement. He was also a National Medical Examiner for maternal deaths for several years. He was the joint author of Bone Marrow Pathology, the definitive work on the subject.

He moved to Ealing Hospital in the early 1980s where he started research, in addition to his full time diagnostic work, and became involved in working voluntarily with clinicians in Malawi and with his long-term collaborator, Dr Susan van Noorden.

It was widely agreed amongst his colleagues and his family that Dr Lampert possessed personal and intellectual integrity, even if speaking his mind could irritate people. He was a faithful and very affectionate husband, with whom life was described as always interesting, if sometimes noisy! He was also always abreast of politics. His children recall – now with good humour – having to endure, on a family holiday to America, visiting Civil War battle fields instead of Disney World!

He was an immensely warm and generous man. He died just short of 79 with still so much to give.

Source: Professor Harry Rajak (BA 1962, LLB 1964)

Dawn Lindberg

[BA FA 1967]

1945-2020

One of the most prominent theatre personalities and advocate for the arts, Dawn Lindberg passed away from COVID-19 related illness on 7 December 2020 at the age of 75. Lindberg was the founder and CEO of the Naledi Theatre Awards – one of most prestigious awards events in South Africa.

Lindberg matriculated from Parktown Girl’s High School and completed her degree in 1962, meeting her husband and long-time partner in music and theatre, Desmond Lindberg (BA 1963), at Wits. She said: “He was like a gentle Viking, tall, with blond hair falling over his eyes and a guitar slung over his back.”

In 1965, Des and Dawn were married; they embarked on a tour of South Africa and then Rhodesia, visiting small towns and cities with their legendary show, Folk on Trek. It was promptly banned on the grounds of obscenity because of adjusted lyrics to the nursery rhyme, Mary Had a Little Lamb, and the spiritual, Dese Bones Gonna Rise Again. They went on appeal but lost the case, and all copies of the album were ordered to be destroyed. In 1973 they produced the groundbreaking musical Godspell, the first multiracial show to be staged publicly in South Africa.

When the couple brought the show to South Africa, it was promptly banned by the censors on the grounds of blasphemy. Des and Dawn took the case to the Supreme Court, and they won after the show was allowed one performance so that Judge Lammie Snyman and the censors’ legal team could view it. Godspell went on to triumphantly tour the country for 18 months. It spearheaded the opening of theatres to all races in 1977.

The success of this production prompted the Lindbergs to move more into the theatrical arena and over the years they staged a succession of musicals and plays that included Pippin; The Black Mikado (the first West End musical to premiere in Soweto); The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (the title was banned); and The Vagina Monologues about the abuse of women.

Des and Dawn participated in the Free People’s Concert at Wits and showed what a vibrant, non-racial free South Africa could be like.

The couple’s most famous songs included The Seagull’s Name was Nelson in 1971, which topped the charts for 20 weeks. Lindberg’s influence in the South African theatre industry was far-reaching and significant: her greatest achievement was the creation and nurturing of the internationally recognised Naledi Theatre Awards, which have honoured many artists and theatre makers, and awarded over 60 Lifetime Achievement Awards.

She believed that “theatre and the arts are much more reflective of our current society and the demographics of the practitioners. New voices are telling our own stories and expressing our unique cultures through dance, music and the visual arts.”

In 2015 the couple were appointed “Living Legends” by the Minister of Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa.

Lindberg is survived by her husband Des, children Adam, Josh, daughter-in-law Zuraida and grandchildren, Zaria and Shia.

Sources: www.desdawn.co.za and www.sapeople.com/2020/12/08 tributes-pour-in-for-south-africas-theatre-legend-dawn-lindberg/

Daniel Plaatjies

[PhD 2008]

1963-2020

Chairperson of the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC), Professor Daniel Plaatjies passed away “unexpectedly of natural causes” at the age of 57 on 10 October 2020.

He was born on 21 May 1963 in Netreg, Bonteheuwel, and educated at Modderdam High School. He obtained an honours degree in social science from the University of Cape Town followed by a master of philosophy degree from the University of the Western Cape. At Wits he earned a doctorate in governance, public policy and public finance. He edited three books which reflected his passion for building state capacity, governance, public accountability and public finance. Professor Plaatjies was a senior manager of the public finance unit at the National Treasury and special adviser to the Human Sciences Research Council.

Academics, colleagues, politicians and diplomats paidtribute to Prof Plaatjies as a South African patriot who dedicated his life to social justice and non-racialism. His acute and insightful contribution to financial and fiscal debates will be missed in Parliament and public life.

Chris Barron wrote in the Sunday Times that he “was a voice in the wilderness, warning about the collapse of municipalities and making bold, evidence-based recommendations about how they could be turned around. No public servant ever spoke truth to power more persistently than he did, or was more persistently ignored.”

He is survived by his wife Lydia-Anne (MA 2012) and three children.

Sources: Cape Argus, The Sunday Times

Fabrizio Marsicano

[BSc 1970, PhD 1973]

1947-2020

Physical chemist Professor Fabrizio Marsicano, who worked in the Wits Department of Chemistry for 20 years, died on 29 December 2020. He was born on 20 November 1947 and matriculated at Jeppe Boys’ High School. He graduated with a PhD in Chemistry in 1973.

He initially worked as a chemist at research institute MINTEK, after which, in 1977, he embarked on an academic career as a lecturer at Natal University, where he remained until 1988, before taking up a post as an Associate Professor at Wits.

He was at Wits for 20 years until his early retirementdue to Parkinson’s disease. He was a physical chemist, and his research at Wits was in the field of the computational modelling of molecules.

Over the course of his academic career, he lectured thousands of students and supervised a number of research degree candidates. A dynamic and popular lecturer, he is still fondly remembered by students.

Source: Deborah Marsicano (BSc Eng 1993)

Rashid Ahmed M Salojee

[MBBCh 1958]

1933-2020

Dr Rashid Ahmed Mahmood Salojee, a prominent activist who participated in the anti-apartheid movement, died on 2 December 2020 at the age of 87 in his Lenasia home.

Fondly called “Ram” because of his initials, Dr Salojee was an ardent cricketer and sports administrator, a committed medical and health professional, and a dedicated civic, welfare and business leader. He was a devout follower of Islam and an ANC stalwart.

Dr Salojee was born on 24 March 1933 and was educated at the Ferreira Indian Primary School, Waterval Islamic Institute, and Johannesburg Indian High School, learning his medical degree from Wits in 1958. He practised as a general practitioner for almost 45 years and retired in 2011.

Dr Salojee actively supported the 1980s students’ boycott of classes and went on to become a prominent leader of the Congress Movement with Dr Essop Jassat, the late Ebrahim “Cas” Saloojee, Ismail Momoniat, Ama Naidoo, Samson Ndou, Mohammed Vali Moosa and Maniben Sita.

He was detained several times during the states of emergency in the late 1980s and banning orders restricted him to the district of Johannesburg. Dr Salojee was a leading figure in the Liberation Movement in the 1980s and 90s, which eventually led to the release of Nelson Mandela.

Several ban orders were placed on him, but Dr Salojee defied them and continued to host civic, provincial and national resistance organisations, including the erstwhile Transvaal Indian Congress, an organisation similar to the Natal Indian Congress started by Mahatma Gandhi.

His son Mahmood (BA 1994) said: “For the past 60 years, my father played a significant role in the lives of people. My father was the Vice President of the Transvaal Indian Congress and the Vice President of the United Democratic Front Transvaal. He accompanied Nelson Mandela on an ANC delegation to Iran, France and Saudi Arabia in 1993. He later attended several conferences of the International Parliamentary Union.”

The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation said he had a remarkable ability to blend his civic, moral and spiritual activism. Dr Salojee was diagnosed with diabetes in 2011 and two limbs were amputated.

He received numerous local and national awards for his lifelong community service, which also included work in the local community’s health sector. Others included The Star Community Award, the Indicator’s Newsmaker of the Year Award, the Lenasia Human Rights Achiever Award, the South African Medical and Dental Practitioner’s Award for Contribution to Medicine and Community Service and the 75th Jubilee Medal from the Health Sciences Faculty at Wits.

He is survived by daughter Yasmin and son Mahmood, and their children.

Sources: Daily Maverick, The Post

Tshiamo Matlapeng-Vilakazi

[LLB 1990]

1964-2020

Tshiamo Daphne Matlapeng-Vilakazi was born on 22 August 1964 to Keutlwile and Rebontshitswe Matlapeng in Molatedi. She attended school in Dinokaneng and later went to Fort Hare University where she obtained her social work degree.

She earned her LLB degree from Wits University, where she met and married Mthetho Vilakazi (BProc 1989).

Her drive, passion and commitment to her work led to a respected career. She served as an independent

1964-2020 non-executive director on the board of directors of Fortress for nearly five years and acted as chairperson of both the remuneration and social and ethics committees. She established valuable professional relationships and founded Vilakazi Commercial Attorneys, Notaries and Conveyancers.

She met her untimely passing in a freak accident at a time when she was highly diversified in her business portfolio including agriculture, which was close to her heart. Being at the farm was when she was most at peace.

She is survived by her four children, Mziwakhe, Gomolemo, Xolani and Thando; grandchild Cordell; siblings, and a large family which includes Coco, Chico, Bruce and Rocky — her dogs.

Sources: Matlapeng and Vilakazi families

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