I was 9
years old the day Chris Hani was assassinated. I remember sitting on my
parents’ bed watching the news presenter on TV announcing the murder
of a person who I had never heard of before. I vaguely also remember Nelson
Mandela addressing the nation, requesting that everyone should remain calm.
Apparently we were on the brink of a civil war but what would I know? I was a
careless 9 year old kid. Beeld newspaper ran a detailed explanation
on how the assassination took place (I remember the pictures vividly)
and when the killers were apprehended the names Clive Derby-Lewis and Janusz
Walus became household names. I even remember that all of us in St 3 (Grade
5) were discussing what we heard on the news and saw in the papers (not
that we had a clue of what we were talking about at the time). We were 9
years old.
Everyday
occurrences of the time only make sense in hindsight. The possibility of civil
war tends to get hidden by a patriotism that is the dogma of your surroundings.
I was proud of my anthem, I was proud of my flag. I was oblivious to a silent
war that has been going on for years already. Could we argue that Hani was a
casualty of war (he was after all chief of staff of the ANC's military wing
Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) just like the people who died in the Church Street
bombing or the AWB murders in Bophuthatswana? Our primary school had bomb
drills. Show me school today who still practise bomb drills. I could identify
at least 5 different types of bombs at the age of 9. Is this normal? At the
time it was. But then things started to change.
A
referendum took place in South Africa and everyone was talking about whether
people would vote “yes” or “no”. “Yes” votes were in the majority and after
elections the ANC came into power with Nelson Mandela taking the reins of South
Africa, exciting and sometimes confusing times for a young kid. We got a new
flag, a new national anthem. Words like freedom and rainbow-nation took a new
place in our vocabulary. Affirmative action and BEE were also new additions to
the SA lingo. Nelson Mandela landed with an Oryx military helicopter on the
rugby field of my primary school. I got to shake his hand and get his
autograph. He was a nice guy, all smiles. Now as he is nearing the end of his
life the whole world tends to agree. At the time there were sceptics though.
Now at 29
I look back at those years with a much greater understanding of the scale of
events that took place. I am not nearly as naïve but I have become much more
cynical. You see, I have read the ANC’s freedom charter. If you haven’t perhaps
you should. Our constitution is pretty much based on it. It is a very noble and
idealistic view of what the perfect society could strive to be. (Let me just
declare my personal view, I am by no means a communist or socialist. I make no
excuses for having capitalist beliefs. But that is the beautiful thing about
our constitution. Each to his own.) I was never taught to hate the ANC. I
have however experienced two sides of the ANC from my youth to now. Chris Hani
was 51 years old when he was assassinated. He would have been an old man of 71
by now. Would he approve of the things that his 1998 SACP successor Blade
Nzimande’s has said over the past couple of years? (Just google Blade
Nzimande news stories, it is ridiculous how paranoid this man is.) The
thing is, I doubt whether Chris Hani would agree with the ANC of today just
like I think Nelson Mandela would disapprove of the party and the leaders that
carry his legacy. But that is just my opinion and I am still relatively young.
Perhaps I’ll understand what is happening today when I reach 49. Hindsight is
always 20/20.
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