Yonela Diko
HambA Kahle, Comrade Sarah Carneson.
Sarah Carneson, a member of the ANC and SACP, a proud communist and a trade unionist, passed away on October 29, 2015. Her life of 99 years was one of struggle, sacrifice and selflessness.
She was born in 1916. In 1931 at age 15, Sarah Rubin joined the Young Communist League and by 1934 she was a member of the SACP.
In 1938 Carneson began working for the National Union of Distributive Workers and also became the secretary of the Tobacco Workers’ Union, but in 1954 she was banned and could no longer hold office in any union. In 1960 she went underground.
In 1967 Carneson was imprisoned for breaching her banning order and, after her release from prison in 1968, she went into exile so that she could work for Sactu, the progressive trade union federation.
Sarah and her husband, Fred Carneson, worked for the movement in exile, raised three children – Lynn, John and Ruth – and returned to the country when the ANC and SACP were unbanned. From that time until her last breath, Comrade Sarah was always a committed member of her ANC branch in Wynberg.
Comrade Sarah was a cadre, a teacher, a mentor, a mother, a friend to many and an example of revolutionary consciousness and discipline. The ANC in the Western Cape salutes this much-loved cadre, who will be sorely missed. Our condolences to her family, friends and comrades. Hamba Kahle, Comrade Sarah Carneson.
l Diko is the ANC Western Cape media liaison officer