4th Annual Ashley Kriel Memorial Cypher Starts with Shirley Gunn Keynote Address

The organisers of the 4th Annual Ashley Kriel Memorial Cypher are honoured to welcome Shirley Gunn as the keynote speaker, opening two days dedicated to revolutionary memory, critical archives and the unfinished project of liberation. At a time when South Africa continues to wrestle with historical amnesia, Shirley Gunn represents a living bridge between the underground struggle, community organising and the ongoing work of historical justice.

On 9 July 1987, at the age of 20, working-class revolutionary militant and community leader, Ashley Kriel, from Bonteheuwel on the Cape Flats, was assassinated by apartheid security forces. In remembrance of his convictions of leadership and the contribution that youth across South Africa played in the struggle against apartheid, the co-constructors will host the 4th annual memorial cypher to commemorate the anti-apartheid freedom fighter and Umkhonto we Sizwe commander whose life was honoured in the 2016 film Action Kommandant.

The 4th Annual Ashley Kriel Memorial Cypher start off on Friday 10 July 2026 with a film screening, a Bushman lamentation ritual, memorial lecture, and a Q&A session with panellists at the University of the Western Cape, Lecture Hall SC5, from pm to 6pm. As has become the custom, the Annual Ashley Kriel Memorial Cypher will end with a live music and cultural performance, which this year will take place at Trenchtown in Observatory on Saturday 11 July 2026 from 7pm on through the night.

Stalwart of Mass Democratic Movement

As an early organiser in the formation and growth of the United Democratic Front (UDF) following its launch in 1983, Shirley helped build one of the most significant mass democratic movements in South African history. Working alongside trade unions, civic organisations, youth movements, faith communities and grassroots activists, she contributed to transforming the UDF into a formidable force of people’s power against apartheid. As state repression intensified, she joined the underground structures of Umkhonto we Sizwe, where she became part of a generation that refused to surrender when the apartheid regime declared the liberation movement defeated.

Today, Shirley Gunn continues that struggle through memory work. As Director of the Human Rights Media Centre and Chairperson of the South African Coalition for Transitional Justice, she has dedicated more than two decades to preserving oral histories, community archives and the testimonies of those whose sacrifices remain largely absent from official narratives. Her landmark publication, Voices from the Underground, restores the lived experiences of members of the Ashley Kriel Detachment, demonstrating that while apartheid celebrated the destruction of the underground, revolutionary consciousness continued to organise, educate and resist.

Beyond The Symbolic

Her keynote arrives not simply as a lecture, but as a political intervention. The Ashley Kriel Memorial Cypher understands that archives are never neutral. They are sites of contestation where power determines whose lives become history and whose contributions disappear into silence. Shirley Gunn’s address invites us to move beyond commemoration towards conscientisation; beyond symbolic remembrance towards the active recovery of revolutionary ethics, intellectual traditions and people’s archives.

Keeping The Memory of Ashley Kriel Alive: Exposing The Cover-Up

This year’s Cypher is guided by the conviction that memory without movement is betrayal. Ashley Kriel’s legacy cannot be confined to monuments, anniversaries or official speeches. It must remain alive in the practices of political education, community organising, cultural production and intergenerational dialogue.

Reclaiming a Revolutionary Inheritance

We therefore extend this invitation to activists, veterans, scholars, educators, students, artists, poets, cultural workers, faith leaders, trade unionists, community organisers and all who recognise that liberation is not merely inherited but continuously reproduced through knowledge, struggle and collective memory. Join us at the University of the Western Cape as we gather not only to remember Ashley Kriel, but to reclaim a revolutionary inheritance that belongs to the people and must remain accountable to the people. Every generation must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it. The Ashley Kriel Memorial Cypher is one such space where that mission is remembered, debated and renewed.

The 4th Annual Ashley Kriel Memorial Cypher Opening Day takes place on Friday 10 July at the University of the Western Cape, Lecture Hall SC5, from 1pm to 6pm.

Bruinou.com is proud to once again be an official media partner for the annual event that celebrates the life of Ashley Kriel and the efforts to not only keep the history alive, but to make the work of Liberation Struggle icons releveant to the political, social and economic struggles South Africa faces today.
A Luta Continua