Val Viljoen, 81, a loved, but status-shy Black Sash stalwart and member of the 1994 Nelson Mandela parliament, died from leukaemia with her daughters by her side in KuGompo City on Friday, April 10.
She will be recalled by hundreds, if not thousands of people from the city’s townships, many of them family of detainees or the released detainees themselves, who were affected by her work for the Black Sash and in parliament.
But in recent years, she worked in the city and served on boards of treasured institutions.
She was lauded by fellow MP and Black Sash struggle activist Judy Chalmers, now 93, the East London Museum, the Guild Theatre, and Ann Bryant gallery where she served on boards, and chaired the museum board.
One of her three daughters, Julie Huckle, 58, said her mother had typically “even to the last moment, planned everything, dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s as to where everything should go”.
Viljoen was hesitant about becoming an MP — as an ANC member who worked tirelessly on that historic campaign, she made sure she was 83rd on the party list. But a landslide victory saw her being sent to Cape Town.
Her reluctance stemmed from a stoic selflessness which shone through in her life as a quiet social justice activist and as a mother and wife as this meant a disrupted family life in then-East London.
Viljoen’s mettle was tempered by a deep kindness to all around her.
Born in Surrey, England, she learnt secretarial skills in French, English and Russian and married engineer Colin Sullivan, and soon became pregnant. He got a job in East London.
She was drawn to the Black Sash after reading a report in the Daily Dispatch.
In interviews with the family and others, it emerged that she was a struggling single mom in the 1970s, having divorced when two of her daughters were a few years old.
She endured poverty, but made sure her girls did not want for anything.
She kicked off her post-divorce career typing, proofing, market research – and making and selling Barbie doll clothes to “the little toy shop in Vincent Park Centre. We were also dressed head-to-toe in home-sewn or knitted clothing”.
She got stuck in and did whatever work was needed, no matter how menial.
She also worked for the Institute of Race Relations and ended up being the local director.
A follower of the Satsangi philosophy which eschews eating animals, Viljoen was an “incredible vegetarian cook”.
Huckle said: “We were very poor but she handled it in such a way that we never felt poor.
“She just kept her head high and never let on to us she was struggling.”
While their mother “never said a bad word about men or husbands”, as a single, independent woman, she made sure she inculcated the grit required of women facing a tough patriarchal society.
“I was the rebel,” Huckle said. “She was good with a wooden spoon but could never catch me as I would climb into the tree house.
“She was scared of heights. She would stand on the second step, glare, laugh and go away.”
Last-born daughter, Jackie Viljoen, said: “We did a lot of Garden Route and local trips.
“She packed the best padkos, and we always played many card and board games where she wouldn’t let me win even though I was the child.”
She married again in 1980 to former Cambridge High headmaster Tony Viljoen.
The couple “devoured books”; she read “serious stuff”, he “loved sports books”.
“In Tony, she found an incredibly lovely, very grounded man. It was always an adult discussion of different views. They were always listening to the other’s point of view,” said Huckle.
In her 2004 book, Strike a Woman, Strike a Rock: Fighting for Freedom in South Africa, former Daily Dispatch freelancer under Donald Woods and Californian Sue Barbara Hutmacher MacLean dedicated 13 pages to Viljoen.
In it, Viljoen said she and Tony did not have the same political views. He was a United Party voter.
“It was more ignorance. He’d never had the opportunities.
“I remember in Black Sash, whenever there was to be any sort of public protest or lobbying, the minute one of the women said, ‘Let me just ask my husband,’ you could cross her name right off the list.
“The wife of a businessman was terrified of being seen to be involved politically in any way because it would affect their business, and I know that my involvement cost Tony at least one promotion.
“That was the way life was in those days. People were scared. I thought it very, very generous of him — and very unusual — to accept my involvement.”
Jackie said: “My mother was intelligent, curious, principled and had a dry humour. She had the ability to see many different perspectives no matter the situation. I will miss her deeply.”
Viljoen’s life changed dramatically in 1990 when Nelson Mandela’s release was announced by FW de Klerk.
She told MacLean she was taken “totally by surprise. Don’t forget East London is right out of it. You know, they say the good thing about living in East London is that when the end of the world comes, you’ll still have 20 years to go.”
When she was told she was going to parliament for five years, Tony was “shattered” but quickly came around and “took early retirement and assumed family duties in East London”.
Chalmers said she met her “dear friend” Val in the Sash in the 1980s.
“Those were hard times, our numbers [in the province] were few, and we relied on one another.
“Val was always a rock in our midst, a constant source of strength in the turmoil and we kept in regular touch.
“This was difficult as our phones were tapped by the security police, our mail intercepted and our vehicles followed.
“But I always knew that a voice totally to be relied on in East London would be that of stalwart fighter for justice Val Viljoen.”
After the 1994 election, “Val and I phoned one another with the news that the ANC had put us on the list to go to the national parliament — well, we were truly taken aback at first, then thrilled and excited.
“From then on for the next five years we were seldom apart. We found ourselves — as ANC comrades — faced with many challenges.”
Viljoen brought a wealth of knowledge to the education and art and culture portfolio committees but declined a seat on the sport portfolio committee, saying the only sport she played was “a gentle game of bridge”.
“Val was the ideal constituency member of parliament.
“She was well known and trusted in her constituency — she had worked in the Sash advice office there for many years and was well versed in the challenges that locals faced on a day-to-day basis.
“In addition, she brought back from parliament word of what was happening in the art and culture wider world that was useful in her role on the board of the East London Museum, and the Guild Theatre where she was also very involved.
“Val Viljoen will be sorely missed in the East London community. She was a wonderful human being and lived out her life making a real difference to those who knew her.”
Former Sash fieldworker in Albany and author Glenn Hollands said: “Another veteran bites the dust.”
She had been “part of a very capable and inspiring provincial leadership team that included Rosie Smith, Judy Chalmers and many others. They had worked on government transformation and exposing the ‘dirty tricks’ of the security establishment.
“Sash members had been proud of her move into politics as an ANC MP and role in ‘representing the party of liberation’, but knowing Val and her integrity, strong principles and fierce pragmatism, I was a little surprised that she lasted nearly five years.”
Viljoen spent her post-parliament years working in the city, but Huckle said: “She was very disillusioned with what followed, the lack of true commitment by party members, the nepotism and the corruption.
“She ultimately cut up her ANC card.”
Tony, who died in 2019, and Val’s ashes will be scattered together.
True to her no-fuss style, Viljoen was privately cremated. There was no service.
Daily Dispatch
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