Remembering Ruth First: A Pan-African Hero

The World Cup 2026 kicked off on Thursday, June 11, with Mexico facing South Africa. It felt like the whole of Africa was against our sister country. In the 1990s, things were different. Back then, South Africa was a beacon of hope as it ended Apartheid and showed the world that evil could be defeated.

South Africa has given us many great Africans in history: Nelson and Winnie Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Govan Mbeki, Joe Slovo, Walter and Albertina Sisulu, Solomon Mahlangu, Steve Biko, and Chris Hani.

Among these greats was Heloise Ruth First. Her life was dedicated to freeing Africa from colonization and ignorance. She was born into the struggle. Her father, Julius First, came from Latvia at age ten. Her mother, Matilda Leveta, arrived from Lithuania at four. They were both founders of the Anti-Apartheid Communist Party.

Ruth First was deeply involved in the struggle. She attended the University of Witwatersrand along with fellow activists like Nelson Mandela and Eduardo Mondlane. Mondlane became the founding president of the FRELIMO movement in Mozambique in 1962. Sadly, both of them were killed in bomb attacks.

While Mondlane died in 1969 in Dar es Salaam, Ruth First was bombed in her office at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo. She married revolutionary Joe Slovo and balanced family life with planning attacks against Apartheid. She lived fast, as if she knew she would not live long. Eventually, a bomb made just for her ended her life.

In 1968, amidst Nigeria's Civil War, she arrived unexpectedly at the University of Ibadan. She found Selina Molteno from the African Studies Department, someone she barely knew from the Anti-Apartheid office in London. She knocked on the door and simply asked, "Can I stay with you?" To Molteno, it meant she would be staying.

By 43, Ruth First was already well-known. She was the editor of banned newspapers in South Africa and had survived the Apartheid prisons. Being caught in South Africa with her memoir, "117 Days," published in London three years earlier, meant five years in prison.

She contributed to the Freedom Charter, the historic 1955 document outlining the principles of the South African liberation struggle. First also compiled and edited Mandela's speeches and trial addresses in the book "No Easy Walk to Freedom," edited Govan Mbeki's "South Africa: The Peasants' Revolt," and Oginga Odinga's "Not Yet Uhuru."

Robin Cohen, Molteno's husband, was surprised when First showed up in Ibadan. Both of them warmly welcomed her during her two-month stay. Ruth First was being hunted by Apartheid and neo-colonial forces. Her husband, Joe Slovo, was in exile in London with their three children. Despite having little money, she traveled across countries like Ghana, Sudan, Egypt, and Algeria from 1964 to 1968. She studied African independence and post-independence struggles. She even made it to a meeting with Northern Nigerian political and military leaders before the Nigerian security services caught her scent, but she had already left.

One of her memorable encounters was with Susan Wenger, also known as Adunni Olosa. Wenger was a German-born Pan-Africanist who dedicated her life to the Ifá religion and helped turn the Osun, Oshogbo Grove into a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Her travels resulted in her best-known book, "The Barrel of a Gun: Political Power in Africa and the Coup d’état in Africa," published in 1970. Ruth was next seen in 1975 at Dar es Salaam University in Tanzania, where she took a teaching position in economics. She focused on the political economy of underdevelopment and planning.

At that time, Dar es Salaam was a hub for African intellectual thought. It had the best social studies faculty on the continent. The ideas exchanged there were immense, thanks to the leadership of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who created the African socialist philosophy of Ujamaa, which means "extended family" or "brotherhood."

Dar es Salaam became a hotbed of ideas that spread globally, discussing imperialism. Some of these discussions were captured in a 312-page book edited by Ugandan political activist Yash Tandon. Tandon was a founder of the underground military movement that took down the Idi Amin regime. The book was titled "Debate on Class, State and Imperialism." Ruth was in the mix, known for not tolerating fools. She gave as good as she got.

She described one debate as "slaughter at a seminar." She noted that one of the outcomes was the "calculated murder-in-public of liberal ideology." She observed: "The radicals persevere with the analysis; the nationalists take refuge in statements about exceptions."

Though she was an exile, a mother, a journalist, and a researcher, the Apartheid regime saw Ruth First as a serious threat. They tracked her until they eventually killed her with a bomb.

Joe Slovo returned to a free South Africa in 1994 and became the minister of housing in Mandela's government. He passed away the following year. My plea is that South Africa, which produced Ruth First and many other great Pan-Africanists, should not be left behind in its current xenophobic state. Africa should embrace and support her.