Ottilie Grete Abrahams (2 September 19372 July 2018) was a

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

n educator, activist, and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

Personal

Abrahams was born on 2 September 1937 in the

Old Location The Old Location (or as it was known then the Main Location) was an area segregated for Black residents of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. It was situated in the area between today's suburbs of Hochland Park and Pioneers Park. History Upon the ...

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

outside of

Windhoek Windhoek (, , ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 202 ...

. Abrahams was the daughter of Otto Schimming and Charlotte Schimming. Her father was the first Black teacher in Namibia. Her sister

Nora Schimming-Chase Nora Schimming-Chase (1 December 1940 – 13 March 2018) was a Namibian politician and Namibia's first ambassador to Germany from 1992 to 1996. After changing her party membership from South West Africa National Union (SWANU) to Congress of Democr ...

became the first Namibian ambassador to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

after the

independence of Namibia The South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, and sometimes denoted in South Africa as the Angolan Bush War, was a largely asymmetric conflict that occurred in Namibia (then South West Africa), Zambia, and Angol ...

. Before obtaining a degree in Cape Town, she attended Trafalgar High School in

District Six District Six (Afrikaans ''Distrik Ses'') is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime. The area of District Six is now ...

in Cape Town. She and her husband

Kenneth Abrahams Kenneth Godfrey Abrahams (1936–2017) was a Namibian activist and physician. He was born in Cape Town and studied at the University of Cape Town. Abrahams later earned his MD in Stockholm. He became active in SWAPO politics in 1960 along with ...

raised four children, one daughter is the scientist and activist

Yvette Abrahams Yvette Abrahams is an organic farmer, activist and feminist scholar in South Africa. Life Yvette Abrahams was born in Cape Town in the early 1960s, the daughter of Namibian activists Ottilie Abrahams and Kenneth Abrahams. She grew up in exile i ...

, her son Kenneth Abrahams overtook the management of the Jacob Marengo School after her death. At the time of her death, she lived in the affluent suburb of Klein Windhoek.

The Namibian ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

newspaper memorialized her as the "Mother of Education."

Activism

Abrahams became politically active while studying in high school and university in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

; she joined the

South West Africa South West Africa ( af, Suidwes-Afrika; german: Südwestafrika; nl, Zuidwest-Afrika) was a territory under South African administration from 1915 to 1990, after which it became modern-day Namibia. It bordered Angola (Portuguese colony before 1 ...

Student Body in 1952 and later became active in the Cape Peninsula Students Union and the

Non-European Unity Movement The Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) is a Trotskyist organisation formed in South Africa in 1943. It had links to the Workers Party of South Africa (WPSA), the first countrywide Trotskyist organisation, and was initially conceived as a broad p ...

. She and other activists formed the Yu Chi Chan Club, a secret

Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

organization. In 1985, Abrahams founded the Jacob Marengo Tutorial College in

Katutura Katutura (Otjiherero for ''The place where people do not want to live'') is a township of Windhoek, Khomas Region, Namibia. Katutura was created in 1961 following the forced removal of Windhoek's black population from the Old Location, which a ...

, of which she was still the principal until her death.

Politics

Abrahams was active in the independence movement with several political parties. Abrahams was part of SWAPO from 1960 to 1963. She, her husband and fellow activist, Kenneth Abrahams, fellow SWAPO dissidents

Emil Appolus Emil Appolus (10 March 1935, in Vaalgras, ǁKaras Region - 28 May 2005, in Keetmanshoop) was a Namibian politician and businessperson. Living in Cape Town, Appolus was part of early discussions on Namibian independence. In 1957, Appolus became a ...

and

Andreas Shipanga Andreas Zack Shipanga (26 October 1931 – 10 May 2012) was a Namibian politician known for the "1975-76 SWAPO crisis, Shipanga Rebellion", a movement within SWAPO that sought to elect a new leadership and whose followers were in response detained ...

formed SWAPO Democrats while in exile in Sweden. However, she left SWAPO Democrats in 1980 and later joined the

Namibia Independence Party The Namibia Independence Party, initially known as the National Independence Party, was a political party in Namibia. In 1975, the NIP joined the Turnhalle Constitutional Conference. Later, the party joined the Namibia National Front The Namibia ...

, where she served as the Secretary General and Publicity and Information Secretary. The Namibia Independence Party was part of the

Namibia National Front The Namibia National Front (NNF) was an alliance of nationalist but moderate parties in Namibia. It was formed in 1977 as a merger of the Namibia National Convention (which had been marginalized after SWAPO's departure from it) and the Namibia N ...

coalition which won one seat in the

1989 election The following elections occurred in the year 1989. Africa * 1989 Beninese parliamentary election * 1989 Botswana general election * 1989 Equatorial Guinean presidential election * 1989 People's Republic of the Congo parliamentary election * 19 ...

to the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

-writing

Constituent Assembly of Namibia Below is a list of members of the Constituent Assembly of Namibia, which became the National Assembly of Namibia upon independence in March 1990. Individual members were selected by political parties voted for in the 1989 election, the first de ...

Life in exile

From 1963 until 1978 Ottilie Abrahams lived in exile with her husband and their children. They lived in Dar es salam,

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

and Lusaka,

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

and for nine years in Stockholm, Sweden. With

United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 United Nations Security Council Resolution 435, adopted on September 29, 1978, put forward proposals for a cease-fire and UN-supervised elections in South African-controlled South West Africa which ultimately led to the independence of Namibia. ...

they returned to Namibia in 1978.

Notes

References

External links

Interview with Ottilie Abrahams by Tor Sellström 16 March 1995 within the project Nordic Documentation on the Liberation Struggle in Southern Africa

Jacob Marengo Tutorial College
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abrahams, Ottilie 1937 births 2018 deaths SWAPO Democrats politicians Namibian expatriates in Sweden Namibian expatriates in South Africa Namibian expatriates in Zambia Politicians from Windhoek Alumni of Trafalgar High School (Cape Town) Namibian educators