‘Silent heroine’ Louise Asmal, co-founder of the Irish anti-apartheid campaign, has died – The Irish Times

Her family announced that human rights activist and co-founder of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM) Louise Asmal has died.

President Michael D Higgins led the celebrations in Ireland, saying she had worked “tirelessly” with her late husband Kader Asmal to create an IAAM “one that could unite people from all walks of life against the inhumane apartheid regime that reigned in South Africa.”

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English-born Louise and South African-born Kader Asmal co-founded the IAAM in 1964. They themselves were barred from entering South Africa at the time because interracial marriage was prohibited and cohabitation was a crime. The couple spent 27 years in Dublin, having met when Kadar – a university professor – was working in the UK.

“Together Louise and Kader, with the support of many of their colleagues, organized some of the largest political marches in Ireland of the time. By appealing to a sense of shared humanity and shared values, one of the best-organized action groups in the country has emerged,” Higgins said.

“For many of our generation, ending apartheid was the most important moral argument of the second half of the 20th century,” the President said, adding that Louise Asmal was “at the forefront” of the process.

The South African Bill of Rights was drafted in the house she shared with her husband in Deansgrange, Dublin.

In an interview with RTÉ Drivetime in 2013, Louise Asmal said that when the couple arrived in Ireland in the 1960s, “nobody knew much about apartheid in South Africa… So we had to start an awareness campaign.”

She described the Dunnes’ Stores workers’ strikes as a “turning point in Ireland” in the 1980s.

After the end of apartheid, Louise and Kader Asmal returned to Cape Town, where Kader served as a government minister under President Nelson Mandela and Louise continued to work as a writer, researcher, administrator and activist.

She was also a board member of the South African Institute for Reconciliation and Justice for many years.

In South Africa, the ceremony was led by Dr Mamphela Ramphele, chairman of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu IP Trust, who said Louise Asmal’s family should be “very proud of this humble, gracious and quiet heroine”.

As stated in her death notice, Mrs. Asmal (nee Parkinson) died peacefully after a long battle with illness.

She is survived by her sons Rafiq and Adam, granddaughter Zoe, sister Stephanie and extended family.

A monument will be erected in Cape Town, the date of which will be confirmed, and her ashes will be scattered in the same place as her husband Kader, who died in 2011.