Personal message

Mncedisi Mbatha, also known as “Mr Big”, was a loving husband, a beloved father, a tireless activist, a warm and hilarious friend, whose love, compassion, and comradeship will be dearly missed. He passed away 24 November 2023 in Khayelitsha, after a long battle against diabetes and related complications.

Mr Big was born 9 February 1972 in the township of New Brighton, Port-Elizabeth. Coming from a family linked to the African National Congress and involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, Mr Big joined the civics movement when he was still a teenager. Together with the comrades, he secured the streets, made sure police incursions got detected for township dwellers to defend themselves against a racist and authoritarian government. Mr Big helped regaining political control over the townships, and participated in setting up the foundations of democracy in South Africa. From this early experience, he cultivated a very strong sense of comradeship, a thirst for direct democracy, an unchallenged will to develop participatory and emancipatory political practices.

Mr Big settled in Khayelitsha in 2000. He married Thozama, also known as Winnie, in 2003. Supported by the organization Kolping South Africa, he developed workshops directed at the underprivileged youth, which had a tremendous impact and helped fighting against substance abuse, curving interpersonal violence dynamics, promoting peace, tolerance and diversity. One just has to walk around Khayelitsha and ask about Mr Big to measure the extent of the respect and love he bestowed upon himself. This is particularly the case in Khayelitsha Site C, where residents still vividly remember the good Mr Big did in their area. They indeed describe the activist as a man of peace devoted to the working class and the poor, who would always give his all to uplift the youth.

Mr Big’s workshops had an important echo in Khayelitsha and beyond. Various grassroot and progressive organizations then head-hunted him for the quality of his social activism. That was soon after May 2008, when xenophobic attacks occurred all over the country, and against which Mr Big strongly and publicly stood in Khayelitsha. While he managed to limit the impact of such attacks in his area, Mr Big remained alarmed by rising dynamics of xenophobic violence in South Africa. For that reason, he joined ARESTA, the Agency for Refugee Education Skills Training and Advocacy in 2009. He soon became the programme director of a massive and unprecedented anti-xenophobia campaign. For more than ten years, Mr Big relentlessly visited schools around capetonian townships, to educate learners and communities about refugees’ rights, to promote tolerance and dialogue. Faithful to the revolutionnary tradition set up by the Freedom Charter in 1955, Mr Big always reminded his audiences that “South Africa belongs to all the people who live in it” and that all residents should enjoy the same degree of rights and freedom, regardless of their places of birth. As a freedom fighter during apartheid, Mr Big participated in bringing down the walls of racism and intolerance and in setting the fondations of democracy. As a social activist and a public educator going under the moto “Ubuntu has no borders”, Mr Big created bridges of peace and solidarity between communities, and helped consolidating the pillars of South Africa’s young democracy. As discrimination and predatory practices against exiled populations, the working class and the poor are becoming all too common in South Africa, Mr Big’s social and political legacy of inclusiveness and solidarity remain a great inspiration for us all, and shall never be forgotten!

Mr Big also recurrently opened his house to local and international researchers and constantly supported their work, sharing it all with people who showed willingness to make positive changes in Khayelitsha. Mr Big was a socialist, a man of the people and for the people. He was also a loving husband and a devoted father of four daughters – Zizipho, Nanziwe, Phelo, Siyanda -, and two sons – Sibusiso and Iviwe. This campaign aims at supporting financially the Mbatha's family. The goal is to raise money for Mr Big's children to carry on with their studies, fulfil their dreams, and shine as brightly as their father did.

 

 

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