Human rights. Equality for girls. The plight of African households decimated by HIV-AIDS. Stephen Lewis spent a lifetime preventing for causes near his coronary heart — and his weapons of alternative have been phrases.
Lewis died on Tuesday, on the age of 88, after an eight-year battle with abdomen most cancers.
“Stephen spent the final eight years of his life battling most cancers with the identical indomitable power he delivered to his lifelong work: the never-ending battle for justice and dignity for each human life,” his household stated in a press release launched shortly after his demise.
“The world has misplaced a voice of unmatched eloquence and integrity.”
Lewis had few equals on this nation as a author and orator. He spent many years passionately championing the economically downtrodden and disenfranchised, warning the world of the specter of local weather change and railing in opposition to bodily and sexual violence visited upon ladies and kids in all places.
At all times eloquent and by no means one to mince phrases, Lewis didn’t undergo fools gladly. However he had an inherent capacity to work with others to get issues executed — whether or not as chief of the Ontario New Democrats within the Seventies, throughout diplomatic postings to the United Nations or as head of his basis that gives help to African communities shattered by HIV-AIDS.
Lewis was born in Ottawa on Nov. 11, 1937 to Sophie (née Carson) and David Lewis, who was nationwide secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), forerunner of the NDP, and later that social gathering’s federal chief. Lewis’s grandfather Moishe Lewis was an activist within the Jewish Labour Committee in Montreal.
Rising up the eldest of 4 youngsters in a household steeped in politics and social activism, Lewis discovered early on to hone his oratory. In 1956, he entered the College of Toronto, the place he joined the Hart Home debating staff. A 12 months later, that staff squared off in opposition to then-U. S. senator John F. Kennedy on the query: “Has america failed in its obligations as a world chief?” The long run president narrowly beat the Hart Home staff 204-194.
Lewis switched to the College of British Columbia in third 12 months, then returned to U of T for his remaining 12 months, however didn’t write his remaining examinations. He went to legislation faculty twice within the early Sixties however dropped out each occasions. After college, he travelled to Africa, the place he taught English and fell in love with the continent.
In 1963, he married journalist and social activist Michele Landsberg. The Toronto couple had three youngsters, Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, Jenny Leah Lewis and federal NDP Chief Avi Lewis, who’s married to author Naomi Klein.
Avi Lewis was elected because the chief of the federal NDP on Sunday in a primary poll victory.
Throughout his acceptance speech in Winnipeg Sunday after successful the NDP’s management, Lewis acknowledged his father was “not doing too properly” however was hanging on to see the following chapter of “the motion.”
“Ever the political fanatic, dad has demanded each day updates about our organizing, delivered to his hospital mattress — a veritable IV drip of marketing campaign information,” he stated. “At age 88 he’s extra passionate in regards to the promise of democratic socialism than he has ever been in his life.”
The Lewis household stated Avi is travelling to Toronto to be along with his household.
Lewis started working for the federal New Democratic Social gathering and in 1963, on the age of 26, was elected to the Ontario legislature. In 1970 he grew to become chief of the provincial NDP, which in 1975 grew to become the official Opposition. In 1978, a 12 months after the social gathering suffered an electoral setback, Lewis resigned as chief and have become a media commentator, lecturer and labour arbitrator.
In 1984, then-prime minister Brian Mulroney appointed Lewis as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, a publish he held for 4 years. He was then named particular adviser to the UN’s secretary-general on African affairs, a publish he held till 1991. From 1995 to 1999, Lewis was deputy director of UNICEF and from 2001 to 2006 served because the United Nations particular envoy for HIV-AIDS in Africa.
As that five-year appointment got here to an finish, Lewis admitted how unprepared he’d been to start with for what lay forward.
“Nobody actually knew what the job can be,” Lewis informed The Canadian Press in a December 2006 interview. “I definitely didn’t know the way grim the circumstances have been. I had a way that issues have been dangerous in Africa, however I didn’t on the time have a way of the carnage on the bottom, and notably amongst ladies.”
So Lewis designed his personal job description, repeatedly visiting such international locations as Malawi, Zambia and Lesotho after which reporting again to UN Secretary-Basic Kofi Annan.
What he found tore at his coronary heart and his sense of social justice: tens of millions useless or dying, a small variety of the contaminated getting antiretroviral drug remedy, and tens of millions of orphaned youngsters caring for themselves or — if fortunate — being cared for by grandmothers whose youngsters had succumbed to the illness.
“Issues have been in horrible form as a result of the African management had been in a state of silence and denial till round 2001,” Lewis recalled. “Africa was solely starting to adapt to the fact that they’d be struggling for survival, that this was an apocalypse. It merely engulfed them.”
However he refused to provide in to despair. “You grit your tooth and maintain preventing,” stated the lifelong social democrat, who went after a few of the sacred cows of the worldwide group.
Lewis accused the G8 of turning its again on Africa, rapped the World Financial institution and Worldwide Financial Fund for debt compensation insurance policies that have been crippling a lot of the continent, and challenged African governments to legislate insurance policies to ease the struggling of their residents.
He continued rallying help for Africa by the non-profit Stephen Lewis Basis, established in 2003 and run by his daughter Ilana Landsberg-Lewis. The inspiration works with community-level organizations in 15 African international locations to supply care and help to ladies, orphaned youngsters, grandmothers and people dwelling with HIV-AIDS.
The inspiration posted a tribute to Lewis on its web site Tuesday, with testimonials to the legacy he leaves behind.
“Stephen was a revered humanitarian who spent his life championing social justice and human rights,” the inspiration’s assertion stated. “All through his political and worldwide careers, he was dedicated to making a extra equitable world.”
Whereas Lewis’s awards and honours are far too quite a few to checklist, they embrace: companion of the Order of Canada, Maclean’s journal’s Canadian of the 12 months (2003); the Pearson Peace medal (2004); being named one of many “100 most influential folks on the earth” by Time journal (2005); and Canada’s Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012).
Writer of the best-selling guide “Race Towards Time: Looking for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa,” Lewis was additionally awarded dozens of honorary doctorates.
Endlessly energetic, he stored up a gruelling schedule of journey and speech-making in his later years, together with one presentation on the 2016 federal NDP conference in Edmonton — the place, because the social gathering’s elder statesman, he masterfully laid out the challenges dealing with the social gathering, Canada and the world.
Then 78, he summed up what it meant to be a social democrat by quoting from a lecture given by his father David, some 60 years earlier:
“The trendy democratic socialist ought to proclaim his or her goals loudly and passionately. The equality of women and men is the socialist watchword; the ethical battle in opposition to injustice and inequality is the socialist’s obligation; to be a robust and highly effective voice for frequent women and men in opposition to the abuse and oppression of the privileged minority is the socialist’s operate; and to forge an ever-finer and better commonplace of values and a richer sample of life and behavior is the socialist’s dream.”
Stephen Lewis spent his life attempting to stay by these phrases.
With information from Sheryl Ubelacker, The Canadian Press