APDUSA extends heartfelt condolences to the family, comrades and friends of the late Frank van der Horst. We bid farewell to a revolutionary who contributed immensely to our political and sports struggle, who rejected the bourgeois myth of ‘no politics in sports’.

Frank was against elitist sport, where only the privileged classes can participate in sport. Through SACOS he made it his life’s mission to struggle as part of a collective to ensure that every child and every person should have more than an outside chance of fulfilling his or her human potential. He propagated and practiced the tenet of “No Normal Sport in An Abnormal Society”.

Frank fought in the forefront to defend SACOS against the combined assault of ANC/MDM opportunists, the National Sports Council (NSC), our pre-1994 supremacist oppressors and imperialism. The machinations of these anti-SACOS forces led to an inevitable split within SACOS. Despite valiant efforts to stave off the onslaught, we had to concede that we were facing the demise of SACOS.

Frank entered the liberatory struggle around 1960 while he was a student at UCT. He joined the newly established Cape Peninsula Students Union (CPSU) and became an enthusiastic and ardent member of the student body. He worked tirelessly addressing students at UCT, various schools across the peninsula and later UWC. In 1961 he joined the APDUSA and was an energetic organiser in the Cape Town area.

The 1960s were years of extreme repression. Frank received frequent warnings from the security police to cease his political activities. He continued his activities clandestinely, mainly with a group of young students. In that era, when a group of former members of the CPSU and the Society of Young Africa (SOYA) broke away from APDUSA to establish themselves as the Yu Chi Chan Club and later the National Liberation League, Frank was torn between his loyalty to erstwhile comrades while also respecting the role of APDUSA. The police clamped down on this group and a few of them were incarcerated. In the 1980s, Frank played a significant role in the Cape Action League (CAL), initiated by ex-members of the National Liberation League after their release from prison.

In recent years, Frank retained comradely engagements with APDUSA. He expressed a keen interest in joining the Radical Left Network (RLN), but this required membership of an organisation involved in the RLN rather than individuals joining it. Subsequently, he accepted an invitation from APDUSA and Bishop Lavis Action Community (BLAC) to present a public lecture on South Africa’s worsening electricity blackouts and energy crises. Frank did not only trace the complex interactions of the energy, environmental and economic crises to the intrinsic workings of capitalism but boldly agitated for an ecosocialist revolutionary solution to these crises.

Frank, with his unbounded revolutionary energy remained principled until the end. He leaves behind a rich legacy as a revolutionary fighter for freedom, political values and clarity in ideas. His politics and the immense contribution he made in South Africa and abroad will inspire new generations of anti-capitalist insurgents.