Former president of the University of Cape Town Students’ representative Council, Dr Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, has explained that his mother is 14 years older than the dad adding that age is just a number.
The 34-year-old South African national, who is a son of a black father and a white mother, narrates that her mother was a lecturer while the dad was a student at the same university when the two met and started dating.
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“Age did not deter the mum and dad from giving birth to me despite tension and animosity they faced from their friends, colleagues and even close family members,” Dr Walsh said.
He added that the two met at a time when her mother was leading an activist group of university students to end racial segregation in South Africa.
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The parents were politically active in the struggle against apartheid. His father Dali Mpofu is a prominent advocate, former South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) boss and Chairperson of the Economic Freedom Fighters Political Party.
The mother, Teresa Oakley-Smith, was a former educational psychology and counselling psychology lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.
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The parents, however, did not end up staying together. The advocate ended up marrying another wife but he has a close connection with his son despite separating from the mother.
Dr Walsh explained that he opted to retain his parents’ surnames, Walsh and Mpofu, his parents’ names respectively because they remain his parents.
“I want them to be equally and actively represented when my story is discussed,” Sizwe added.
“If you learn how to learn, it doesn’t matter if it is through formal education or not, the love of the pursuit of knowledge is just as good as a rubber stamp from the highest education possible,” he said.
He had to learn his father’s local dialect; this, he says, helped him to comfortably communicate well with his paternal relatives. He also opted to marry a Muslim lady despite being a Christian hence changing to the Islamic religion 13 years ago to secure the love of his life.
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