Chris Hani – Fighter for the Workers and the Poor

Chris Hani – Fighter for the Workers and the Poor

(Extracts from The African Communist Editorial Notes, No. 132, 1st Quarter 1993)

The assassination of the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), Chris Hani, shortly after 10:00 on 10 April 1993, dealt a terrible blow to the Party, the national liberation movement and the country. He had emerged in the months prior to his death, according to even the opponents of the Party, the second most popular politician in the country, after Nelson Mandela.

But the shots that killed Chris Hani, unwittingly mobilised a huge army of liberation across the face of the country. On Wednesday, 14 April and Monday 19 April 1993, the day of the funeral, 4 million workers stayed away. These were the two largest stayaways in the history of the struggle. In addition to employed workers, millions of students and unemployed also observed the two days. These were not just passive stayaways. An estimated 2,5 million people took part in thousands of pickets, rallies, marches and services throughout South Africa on Wednesday 14 April 1993. The funeral itself, was the largest funeral in the country’s history.

It was not just the immediate SACP and African National Congress-led alliance constituency that was mobilised. Tens of thousands of South Africans (and people all the world) expressed their outrage at the killing. Church people, the Chief Rabbi, Islamic and Hindu religious figures stood up publicly to condemn the assassination, and even, on many occasions, to express their solidarity with Chris Hani’s ideals. Even the apartheid embassy in Washington flew its flag at half-mast. On death-row in Pretoria Central, prisoners pooled their meagre allowances to raise R750 to be sent to the Hani family – Chris was an outspoken opponent of capital punishment.

Let no-one forget that this countrywide and international outpouring of outrage and sorrow was for a fallen Communist Party leader in the year 1993. Just three and four years prior to the murder, opponents of the Communist Party were confidently proclaiming the “final demise of communism”. In life, as in death, Chris Hani proved them absolutely wrong. But Chris Hani would also have been the first to insist that it was not just any communism that deserved to live. For him, communism was not the affair of a theoretical elite. It was a cause to be fought for in the heart of a broad mass movement. Communism, for him, meant, above all, simple but noble things like:
– jobs for the jobless;
– homes for the homeless;
– a living wage for the workers;
– land for the landless;
– hope for the youth;
– a life of dignity for the old;
– free health care and relevant and free education for us all.

Communism meant an end to the exploitation of the many by the few. As an individual, Chris Hani is irreplaceable. Our answer to the assassination, was and must continue to be, collective, mass-based and grass-rooted.

LONG LIVE THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIS HANI – FIGHTER FOR THE WORKERS AND THE POOR!

Editorial Notes, “Chris Hani – Fighter for the Workers and the Poor”, The African Communist, No. 132, First Quarter 1993.

Castro Khwela
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