RISE Mzansi mourns the passing of activist,author, Mama Zuleikha Mayat

3 February 2024
Release: Immediate
RISE Mzansi takes this moment to mourn the passing of anti-apartheid activist, writer Mama Zuleikha Mayat, better known for her household cookbook Indian Delights, on bookshelves and in kitchens found across the country.
Mama Mayat, who left this world on Friday evening at the beautiful age of 98, was someone who believed in the power of organising and mobilising around a cause, played an important role in forming the Women’s Cultural Group (WCG) in 1954 that brought women
together with the aim of empowering them and advancing broad societal change.
Moreover, she was a member of the Black Sash, which in the late President Nelson Mandela’s own words “held the flag of liberty high” during the darkest days of apartheid. It was also Mama Mayat and her late husband, Mohamed Mayat, who provided a safe haven at their Durban home for other anti-apartheid activists like Mandela.
In a 2014 Mail & Guardian interview, Mama Mayat bemoaned the state of our democracy, where she stated that –
“No, I think we had better expectations. We really thought it was going to be dramatic change in the way things were progressing. We really thought there would be more even-handed progress all round, from the lowest to the top. You’ve seen some people getting very much richer and some getting poorer. Now that gap is widening when we should be bridging the gap, narrowing that gap, and that’s not happening.”
It is for this reason that we must not tire in the good fight for a safe, prosperous, equal and united South Africa so that the Mama Mayats and Tata Mandelas, who spearhead this fight can truly rest in peace. We have to honour her legacy and uphold the values she stood by.
On behalf of RISE Mzansi, I wish to convey our deepest condolences to the family, friends and comrades of Mama Mayat. May Allah grant her the highest stages of heaven and grant ease and patience to the family in this difficult time.