The APDUSA is saddened by the sudden departure of comrade Rodney Zeeberg on 5 August 2025. Rodney lived in Bishop Lavis, Cape Town, South Africa. He developed a keen interest in student politics during his high school years, which grew amid the intense political fervour of the mid-1980s.

In 1989, Rodney joined the African People’s Democratic Youth Movement (APDYM), an affiliate and child of the Unity Movement of South Africa (UMSA). His talent as a prolific writer and wordsmith was soon noticed. He was encouraged to commit his newly found ideas to paper, and he soon contributed enormously to agitational pamphlet writing, especially advancing the ideas of the movement amongst youth and young workers. He subsequently became a member of APDUSA’s Western Cape branch.

Before he embarked on a four-year teaching study program in the early 1990s at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), he worked in the printing industry in Cape Town. After obtaining his teaching qualification, he spent many years working as a contract teacher. His political activism, spanning over three decades saw him simultaneously acting as teacher, community youth organiser and leadership and organisational developer (as director of the Research Action Group, RAG). Rodney was also a founder member of the Bishop Lavis Action Community (BLAC) and was elected president at its inaugural meeting in 2017. He remained its sitting president until his untimely passing.

Rodney was a regular contributor to APDUSA’s newsletter and website and consistently wrote analytical political articles. He made invaluable contributions at the organisation’s political schools and yearly conferences he attended. Slaansak, a novel which he wrote in Afrikaaps, unmasks and opposes violence against women and children in our society. His memoirs appear in his last book entitled When Life Gives You Lemons. He was centrally involved in the initiative started in 2018 when BLAC and APDUSA embarked on a joint effort to start organised political training and education. This later led to the formation of the Anti-Capitalist Political Network (APN). Even as his health significantly deteriorated over the last few years, Rodney still contributed significantly to the mammoth task to build this organisation during very difficult political conditions for the oppressed and exploited. Comrade Rodney had a deep infectious compassion for his fellow human beings. His passing has indeed left a huge void which we will find difficult to fill. We, however, have no choice but to carry forward the struggle for ecosocialism.