The assassination of Chris Hani in April 1993 was a decisive moment in South Africa’s transition to democracy. Nelson Mandela used this tragic event to pressure President F. W. De Klerk to conclude negotiations and announce a date for the elections that would bring the African National Congress (ANC) to power the following year, marking the formal end of apartheid.
Hani was born in 1942, the same year as two of Mandela’s successors as president, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. While Mbeki and Zuma both remain alive and politically active today, more than thirty years later, Hani did not live long enough to hold office in the new South Africa. He is nevertheless remembered today as one of the greatest of South Africans.
He played a leading role in three anti-apartheid organizations: the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the armed wing that the ANC and SACP formed together in the 1960s, uMkhonto weSizwe (usually known as MK). By discussing in more detail his role in these organizations, we can show why his death was such a great loss to the new South Africa.
Hani was born in the Transkei, now the Eastern Cape. He attended Catholic primary schools in the Transkei and did his matriculation exams at Lovedale at the early age of sixteen before moving on to the University College of Fort Hare. He graduated at nineteen, having taken courses in Latin and English literature, as well as the Greek classics in English. His parents discouraged him from seeking ordination as a Catholic priest, but he valued his classical education.
The assassination of Chris Hani in April 1993 was a decisive moment in South Africa’s transition to democracy.
He had an inherited interest in the ANC as his father, Gilbert, a labor migrant who became a small trader in Cape Town, was an active member. His uncle, Milton Hani, was also an active member of the Communist Party of South Africa, which was the SACP’s legal predecessor before the authorities banned it in 1950. His own…
Auteur: Hugh Macmillan
