Cape Town - FLAGS flew at half mast yesterday as hundreds of mourners packed an Anglican church in Bellville-South for the funeral of former deputy minister of social development, Jean Swanson-Jacobs, hailed for devoting her life to helping others.
Swanson-Jacobs, 57, who was also well known as Jean Benjamin, died on July 7 in Cape Town after suffering a stroke. She was a struggle veteran and deputy minister from 2004 to 2009.
At the service at St John’s Anglican Church, several high-profile politicians, including Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel, Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini and Deputy Minister of International Relations Marius Fransman, joined her friends and family in paying tribute.
They described her life growing up in Bellville-South, her time at the University of the Western Cape, where she joined the struggle, her exile to the UK and her return to South Africa. All said she had remained committed to the poor and less fortunate, serving the ANC and her church until her death.
Swanson-Jacobs’s son Govan Benjamin said: “I’m normally the quiet one and I knew this (speaking at the funeral) would be hard, but not to do it would be an insult to the courage my mother showed.”
He said she was “the best mother a son could ask for”, who “taught me the true value of a woman, the strength of a woman, and how much respect a woman deserves”.
“Mom, I’d like to say goodbye and I love you with all my heart,” he concluded, his voice cracking with grief.
Daughter Lindsey Benjamin read out a message from Geraldine Fraser Moloketi, newly appointed special envoy on gender for the African Development Bank, in which she said Swanson-Jacobs had joined the ANC at a time “when being in the ANC was not about a career, it was about a cause”. Fraser-Moloketi called Swanson-Jacobs “one of South Africa’s unsung heroines”, saying she had made “a real contribution to the realisation of our democracy”.
Dlamini recalled Swanson-Jacobs as a woman who “remained an activist even when she was appointed deputy minister”. “She never forgot that she was a servant of the people.”
Before speaking, Manuel led the congregation in singing the struggle song Thina Sizwe.
He then said Swanson-Jacobs’s political legacy would be the three things she had been most passionate about: her policy work around HIV and Aids, the fight against drugs and against the abuse of women and children.
“These are struggles we must continue to wage in memory of our comrade,” Manuel said, adding that Swanson-Jacobs had also been a dedicated mother, wife, sister and friend.
Swanson-Jacobs is survived by her husband, Aubrey Swanson-Jacobs, and her three grown children Lindsey, Jeanine and Govan.
Weekend Argus