The ANC hero Marius Schoonâs son, Fritz, is a DA candidate competing to win election in Johannesburgâs eastern Ward 64, which includes Yeoville, Berea, all of Bertrams and Judiths Paarl.

Fritz Schoon was born in Botswana and lived in many countries across Africa as his father helped build the ANC in exile. His mom Jeanette and sister Katryn died when a parcel bomb sent by apartheid intelligence operative Craig Williamson exploded in their kitchen in 1984. Marius and Fritz survived. Marius was travelling while young Fritz was three years old.

The Schoon name is ANC gold. Now part of it is turning DA blue.

âIn my childhood, I had an awareness from my infancy that my family was strongly affiliated with the ANC. For my adult life, I have never been an ANC member. Itâs not the same ANC that fought against apartheid,â Schoon said in an interview.

He is now 45 and chose a DA political career before the 2024 election.

Asked when he turned away from the party his mother died for and his father lived for until he died of lung cancer in 1999, Schoon said the arms deal had been his turning point.

Contempt for accountability

âSo now I am in SA [after the family returned post-freedom] â and the Arms Deal happens â itâs the post-1994 era. I thought I would see the same practice [of politicians stepping away when facing scandal, which he witnessed as a child growing up in Ireland]. What I saw instead was a culture of [hanging on to the legal argument of] innocent until proven guilty. It was a different way of handling public office.â

âSince then, there have been so many scandals. There is a pattern of insolence and culture of contempt for accountability.â

âI joined the DA about eight months before the 2024 election. I approached [former DA MP] Ghaleb Cachalia at the time. I said to him, we have similar upbringings coming from ANC roots.â

The Cachalia family are also rooted in the ANC. Police Minister Feroz Cachalia is from the family.

âOne of the reasons that Joburg is facing the challenges it is, is that so much gets siphoned off to unplanned expenditure, to corruption. Joburg is the richest city in the country, backbone of SA, and resource issues should not be the issue â must be allocated well,â Schoon said.

He stood for election as a Gauteng MPL in 2024, but wasnât elected. He is giving it another shot as candidate for Ward 64.

Like many inner-city wards, this one has the full range of issues from house hijacking and unauthorised construction to water, dumping and infrastructure issues. It is also one of the epicentres of the populist anti-migrant movement March and Marchâs activities. The organisation (or network) has now extended its pogrom-like campaign to the end of September.

âWhen New York was being turned around, they used the âbroken windowsâ concept [of fixing small things and showing attention to detail]. You fix one street at a time and you keep doing that. The best-case scenario is that the DA gets 50+1% [a simple overall majority at the 4 November poll] so it can govern without relying on coalitions. That way it can make systemic changes,â said Schoon. DM

Marius and Jeanette Schoon (née Curtis)Marius Schoon was an Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist who paid an extraordinary price for his politics. He was imprisoned from 1964 to 1976 for sabotage against the apartheid state and, after his release, was placed under a banning order. He met fellow activist Jeanette Curtis in 1976 and they married the following year. Both were banned â technically preventing them even from communicating with each other â and they left South Africa for exile, first in Botswana. Their daughter Katryn was born in 1978 and their son Fritz in 1981. The family later moved to Angola, where Marius and Jeanette continued their anti-apartheid work and Marius taught at the university in Lubango. (South African History Online)

On 28 June 1984, apartheid security police struck at the family. A letter bomb intended for Marius exploded in their Lubango home while he was away. Jeanette opened it and was killed with six-year-old Katryn. Fritz, then a small child and also in the kitchen, survived. Former apartheid spy Craig Williamson later admitted responsibility for arranging the bombing; police explosives expert Jerry Raven told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission how the device had been constructed. (South African History Online)

Marius survived to return to democratic South Africa and pursued Williamson over the murders of his wife and daughter. In November 1998, he testified at Williamsonâs TRC amnesty hearing, dismissing Williamsonâs apology as sounding like âthe dropping of crocodile tearsâ. Just three months later, on 7 February 1999, Marius died of lung cancer in Johannesburg, aged 61. Williamson and Raven were granted amnesty in 2000. Mariusâs prison comrade Hugh Lewin said after his death that Schoon âepitomised the sacrifices that people made for the struggleâ. (Department of Justice)

Source: ChatGPT