BREAKING NEWS: VETERAN TRADE UNIONIST, EDUCATOR AND SWAZI SOLIDARITY ACTIVIST PASSES AWAY
.....Dicks resigned from COSATU and relocated to eSwatini to be a full time Swazi activist. By Staff Reporter
The Southern African labour and pro-democracy movements are mourning the death of Cristal Dicks, a veteran trade unionist, feminist, educator, and lifelong ally of the eSwatini democratic struggle.
Dicks, affectionately known as “Comrade Crystal,” was revered for her intellectual clarity, warmth, and uncompromising commitment to justice. Her death was confirmed by friends and comrades on Monday, sparking an outpouring of tributes across social media and labour circles.
Dr Simamkele Dlakavu Crystal Dicks and Phindile Kunene having a happy moment
It is alleged that she contracted malaria while returning from a trip to Rwanda and died in hospital on Monday night. “It’s shocking. #CrystalDicks is no more! It has been a while since I physically met her. May the soul of #CrystalDicks rest in peace,” one comrade posted, capturing the disbelief felt by many who had worked alongside her for decades.
Like Che Guevara, her commitment to internationalism was evident when she resigned from her position at the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and relocated to eSwatini to become a full-time Swazi activist. This meant taking a 90 percent pay cut just so she could join the Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF) as one of their program officers.
Her mission, she said, was to strengthen the organisational capacity and political education of eSwatini’s democracy movement. Dicks was also an ardent supporter and activist for a free Palestine. Dicks’ life was defined by a fierce commitment to worker education and social justice.
Crystal facilitating at a workshop
She served as COSATU’s National Education Secretary, worked with the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), and later became Director of Gender Equity at the University of the Witwatersrand, before joining the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES). She was also one of the founders of the Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC), a key solidarity initiative that sought to unite labour, civic, and political organisations in support of Swazi freedom.
Through her long association with the Foundation for Socio-Economic Justice (FSEJ), Dicks mentored scores of activists from the Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO) and the Swaziland National Union of Students (SNUS). Her home in South Africa became a meeting place for exiled Swazi activists — a sanctuary where strategy sessions, storytelling, and laughter filled the air.
“Her house was more than a home,” one comrade said. “It was where the movement gathered, healed, and remembered.” Those who knew her described her as a revolutionary educator, deeply influenced by Paulo Freire’s methods of popular education, and who believed that workers’ power lay in knowledge and organisation.
Crystal Dicks with friends.
“Comrade Crystal loved socialism,” one tribute read. “A classless society, where production was for use and not for profit. Most of her moving contributions were on abuse of power within the trade union movement,” wrote Norman Mampane, a former colleague of hers. Over her more than 22 years in the trade union movement, Dicks worked with NUMSA, POPCRU, and later at the Tshitshimani Centre for Activist Education in Cape Town, where she trained working-class communities in Khayelitsha and Langa.
Colleagues recall her as a “shrewd debater” and “thorough thinker” who encouraged tolerance and intellectual honesty. “‘What is critical is not that we should have the same views on everything, nor that we should refrain from expressing our differences... rather being tolerant of our different views,’ she always argued,” a comrade remembered.
"‘Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustices and lying and greed,’” she often quoted William Faulkner as saying. Dicks’ revolutionary passion for adult education was matched only by her creativity. She often blended worker education with the arts, inviting musicians and actors such as Mercy Pakela and Mzuniweslekileyo to her sessions.
She believed learning should also heal and inspire. To eSwatini’s exiled and underground activists, she was more than a comrade — she was a mentor, host, and pillar of solidarity. Many credit her with helping shape the ideological and organisational backbone of the country’s democracy movement. “She will be remembered as a revolutionary practitioner, a lifelong community activist, a progressive worker educator, a gender activist, and a dialectician to the end,” said Manqoba Nxumalo, one of the activists who worked and lived with her in Johannesburg.
Thabile Zwane, a trade unionist and former Swaziland Youth Congress activist, recalled how Dicks bought her a stroller and bathtub for her first-born son. “I will always remember the love she showed me,” Zwane she wrote on her facebook. As condolences pour in from across the region, her comrades are left with one clear memory — a woman whose ideals, laughter, and clarity were, like her name, crystal. Dicks is survived by one Swazi child.