OPINION: Ina Cronje went on to do amazing work within both the KZN legislature where she chaired committees, and then also as a member of the Executive. She worked closely with the late John Wills and our Premiers in trying to stamp out corruption amongst other things, writes Dr Michael Sutcliffe.
Sometime in my Matric year a student teacher came into the Afrikaans class to teach us for a few weeks. It turned out to be Ina Cronje (nee Griesel). She was subsequently appointed as one of the permanent staff and was much more than an Afrikaans teacher, directing plays each year with us mostly wayward youngsters who thought surfing during school hours was an optional extra. Her love for the Arts and Humanities shone through even then.
A few years later when I was at university and her sister Hanlie was going out with a friend of mine I got to know Ina as one of five very strong and progressive sisters who challenged my own views of people who came from an Afrikaans background. Ina was the second of these five sisters of farming parents, a close-knit family with the “Griesel meisies” out to challenge the world.
Hanlie told me then how their father in particular had played a major role in encouraging strong independent women, including bucking the “norm” of what Afrikaners were and what they stood for. Their mother was their lodestar. Interestingly, they grew up in the small town of Schweizer-Reneke where the late comrades Essop and Aziz Pahad (five brothers compared to the five sisters in the Griesel clan) and Ahmed Kathrada also grew up. One wonders whether or not her father’s strength had been influenced by those veterans of our Struggle. It was also the hometown of Irma Stern, Elisabeth Eybers and Joyce Murray-perhaps the collective strength of these individuals, across different positioned practices, were to be found in the soil!
The Griesel women who I first met in the 1970s and early 1980s were highly educated and progressive. That’s what struck me most back then because I’d grown up in a context where English-speaking white South Africans thought that Afrikaans-speaking South Africans were the source of all the problems in South Africa. Of course we became better informed in spite of the racist history we were then taught, and thankfully learnt the truth about the history of colonialism, imperialism, racism and sexism.
Ina had married Pierre Cronje who went on to become a Progressive Federal Party (PFP) MP in the apartheid Parliament and who was one of the few whites “in the system” standing for our country’s liberation.
Ina had in that period continued her studies and became an attorney working to support those detained and brutalised by the apartheid government. Ina and Pierre worked closely with the United Democratic Front (UDF) and ANC, particularly in the Midlands, and then in 1994 Ina was selected to be part of the ANC’s team of MPLs in the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature.
Those were very heady days, particularly as the IFP only entered the elections quite late in the day. The IFP then won a majority of seats in the KZN legislature. Ina then served initially as Deputy Chief Whip under comrade Harry Gwala but after his passing on in 1995 she took over as our Chief Whip. But right from get go Ina ruled us on procedure. In 1994 in the ANC’s caucus Ina’s background as a teacher and attorney, coupled with her teacher’s voice, came to the fore as she instructed a rather unruly bunch of us in the ANC caucus on the rules of order. Whilst she taught us very well, no matter how many times we as the ANC MPLs called for a Point of Order, the then Speaker Frank Mdlalose would not accede to our requests!
Often led by the naughty John Jeffery (now a respectable Deputy Minister), we did our best to manipulate the rules as best we could. The ANC caucus as a whole was rather arrogant given that whilst we were only 30% minority party, we acted as if we were the majority party.
In addition to her (rather boring at times) official work, Ina had many other interests that found expression in her support for the arts, horse racing, especially the Durban July, and in her garden in Hilton that became an oasis for all to enjoy.
But she was also a bit naughty, too, at least in some of the pranks we got up to in the 1990s after a few drinks with journalists in what was then known as the smallest Holiday Inn in the world in Ulundi. Of course I won’t publish these for fear of encouraging more defamation lawsuits.
I remember too that Ina didn’t know much about sports except for motor car racing and we remember once, after explaining to her about how cricket was played in the one of the first post-1994 tests, she expressed surprised that they had floodlights in the stadium!
Anyway, Ina went on to do amazing work within both the KZN legislature where she chaired committees, and then also as a member of the executive. She worked closely with the late John Wills and our Premiers in trying to stamp out corruption amongst other things.
Over the years, after I left the legislature, I have enjoyed the occasional meetings with her catching up on what she was doing. She had boundless energy and continued even after elected government, excelling as she served Trade and Investment KZN and other work, such as her commitment to the Arts.
Whilst the Ina I knew would always have said that she had so much more to do in this life, the fact remains that she did so much for so many in her lifetime.
We must celebrate the person she was and how she touched so many for so long. Much love to Pierre, her children, Larissa and Reuben, her grandchild Mikka and their amazing extended family. Our thoughts are with you but she remains strongly a part of all of us.
*Dr Sutcliffe is Director of City Insight.
**The views expressed do not necessarily the views of Independent Media or IOL