There were tears and misty eyes at poignant moments, but much more laughter and enthusiastic applause as hundreds of people remembered Professor Kader Asmal during Thursday’s first official memorial service.
The City Hall stage was decorated with white drapes and flower arrangements in green, white and gold, flanked by large portraits of Asmal in a typical pose: standing in front of a crowded bookshelf, shirt open-necked and sleeves rolled up, ready for action.
Asmal’s cabinet colleague and close friend, National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel, acted as programme director for the event, which started promptly at 11am with the singing of the national anthem, led by the choir from the Working for Water programme that Asmal started while Water Affairs and Forestry Minister. The two-hour programme ended up over-running by more than half-an-hour.
The choir was followed by interfaith prayers by Anglican Archbishop Dr Thabo Makgoba, Rabbi Gregory Alexander of Temple Israel and former Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool, who is of the Muslim faith.
Speaking on behalf of the diplomatic corps, Irish ambassador Brendan McMahon said Asmal’s death “leaves a great void in the political life of this country”.
“Thanks for lending us Kader for 27 years. Ireland is a small country of four million. I think all four million knew Kader and admired him… We knew we only had him on loan and that his heart was always in South Africa.”
Asmal had been held in such deep affection partly because the Irish enjoyed a reputation for conversation and talking, McMahon added. “And by God, Kader could talk. He excelled in the art of the cut-and-thrust of conversation.”
Achim Steiner, Under Secretary-General of the UN, who worked with Asmal when he (Asmal) headed the World Commission on Dams, said the late professor had been a citizen of South Africa and of Ireland, but also a citizen of the world: “His work always echoed to a world community.”
Retired Constitutional Court judge Justice Yvonne Mokgoro, who was a law faculty colleague at UWC, said the “forceful, articulate, confident” Asmal had had a “queen bee” effect. “Wherever he was, there were people buzzing around him, an almost Pied Piper figure among his students, the centre of attraction. I suspect he delighted in the attention,” she added wryly.
Asmal’s grandchildren, Oisín and Zoë, paid a moving tribute to their proud “grandpa” who had shown them off at every opportunity, and they regaled the audience with personal memories such as how he had sneaked off for “suspiciously long toilet breaks” to smoke an illicit cigarette, with several flushes failing to hide the evidence of butts in the bowl.
They recalled that he’d had an inability to deal with any technology, had sent messages “from Father Christmas” in his own handwriting, and on one occasion had taken them to the Planetarium, where his “loud snores” revealed he’d dozed off stretched out on the floor while supposedly watching the star show overhead.
Senders of messages of condolence, read out by family member Dr Laila Asmal, remembered Asmal for “his love of cricket and of quality cotton shirts” and “his often incomprehensible riddles”.
Satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys said Asmal had been “too good to be true” for his satire: “I had to play Peter Sellers playing Kader Asmal. “Heaven will never be the same,” Uys added to roars of laughter, suggesting Asmal would be there arguing with ANC politicians and demanding more transparency, conducting a debate with the Archangel Gabriel about the Protection of Information Act, and “desperate to find a place to have a cigarette”.
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