Emulate Chris Hani!
Message on the occasion of the 22nd Anniversary Commemoration of the assassination of Chris Hani
As delivered by General Secretary Comrade Dr Blade Nzimande, Friday 10 April 10 2015, Boksburg
Build working class unity, become active in all key sites of struggle, and fight for justice!
Let us remember Chris Hani - a communist to the end; a revolutionary; a national liberation fighter. Chris Hani dedicated his life to the finest cause in the world - the liberation of mankind. He fought against national oppression, gender oppression and economic exploitation in all their dimensions, including his absolute commitment to the struggle against imperialism.
Who was Chris Hani?
Comrade Chris was born Martin Thembisile Hani and adopted his elder brother's name of Chris as part of his underground identity. Chris wanted to be a Roman Catholic priest because of his love for his people and their communities. But his father dissuaded him from this. For him the only other route to serve his people was to join the ANC, and later the SACP and Umkhonto weSizwe to fight the apartheid regime. Cde Chris fought in all terrains of struggle against the apartheid regime - in the armed struggle (and later in building the self-defence units), in the underground, in the international arena and in the mass struggles, especially in the early 1990s. Like a true communist, Cde Chris understood that the struggle has to be fought in all terrains.
Since his assassination on 10 April 1994 the whole truth has not been fully disclosed. And for so long as this is the case, the SACP will continue its campaign for justice to be fully served. Those who think that justice is a one-way-street in which the perpetrators of crimes against humanity are simply forgiven, without any full disclosure on their part, they are grossly mistaken.
It was because of Cde Hani's bravery and commitment to the cause of human and social justice that he was targeted by the apartheid murderers and their capitalist backers who assassinated him. His assassination nearly plunged our country into a civil war. Thanks to our liberation Alliance and its leadership that a civil war was avoided. Instead it was out of Hani's murder that we turned this tragedy against the apartheid regime by extracting the election date for the first democratic general election on 27 April 1994!
Let us emulate Chris Hani and become active in all key sites of the struggle - which is the lifeblood of social change.
In memory of Chris Hani, Let us build and defend working class unity!
To emulate Chris Hani means that we must do everything in our capacity to build, defend and further develop working class unity. Disunity can only serve the interests of the capitalist bosses and other class opponents of the working class.
Hani expressed his views without fear of favour, but without abandoning the Congress movement nor attacking the ANC as a basis of winning favour with capitalist media. In 1969, he wrote the famous "Hani Memorandum". He was concerned about the plight of MK combatants and the imperative to push the struggle forward especially in the home front. In the memorandum he developed a sharp constructive criticism of our liberation movement in exile. This became useful as it led to the watershed ANC Consultative Conference held in Morogoro, Tanzania in 1969. As one of the outcomes, the Revolutionary Council, which was to direct our struggle from then until we dislodged the apartheid regime, was established. The Conference adopted the first Strategy and Tactics document of our movement which became more of a shared Alliance document.
But Chris Hani also respected the principle of democratic centralism. The principle requires both members and leaders, regardless of the personal views they hold during decision-making processes, to respect and defend the outcomes reached at the end of a collective and democratic discussion.
Chris Hani maintained and displayed this discipline to the end. This included during the difficult and very complex period when the armed struggle was suspended in the early 1990s. He believed the decision was untimely; but despite his personal views, he went on to defend it. He never went to the media to distance himself and rubbish his own organisation, the ANC! Instead he said, in his own words:
"In the current political situation, the decision by our organisation to suspend armed action is correct and is an important contribution in maintaining the momentum of negotiation".
That was Chris Hani defending the decision of the majority even against his own personal views. In Chris Hani we had a calibre of discipline and self-discipline that is needed to take forward our struggle today. The working class movement today is desperately in need of the breed of selfless cadres typified by the disciplined revolutionary spirit of Chris Hani. In memory of Cde Hani we must defeat ego-centric leadership which behaves as if they are above the organisations they serve. The lesson we must learn from Cde Chris is that we must subject our (sometimes big) egos to collective organisational discipline!
It is also important that workers must stand up to confront business unionism, the tendency to use trade union resources in pursuance of business interests by some of the trade union leaders or their spouses. Workers must demand scrupulous transparency and accountability from their leaders about how trade union funds or union investments are used or invested. Otherwise some of these funds will be used as dirty money to divide and weaken the trade union movement, or even to capture Cosatu, as is the case with unions like Numsa today!
Let us confront the underlying factors behind the challenges we face!
On the 31st of March 2015, on the eve of this current Chris Hani Month, Cosatu announced the expulsion of its long-serving General Secretary, Comrade Zwelinzima Vavi. The federation indicated that this was a difficult and painful decision. The SACP agrees with this Cosatu sentiment and feeling, that it is indeed a sad and difficult moment. The SACP has however consistently argued that Cosatu must be allowed the space to conduct its own organisational and internal disciplinary processes, free from any external interferences. We therefore respect Cosatu's decision, difficult as this may be, without underestimating the ongoing challenges that will continue to confront the federation and the broader working class in South Africa going forward.
In its official statement on the matter, the SACP stated that: "Cosatu has for some while now been faced with serious problems of maintaining unity, cohesion and discipline". Referring, amongst other things, to the decision, the statement said it "cannot be cause for celebration for any progressive or revolutionary organisation".
It was important for us as the SACP to unambiguously state our position in this way, because much of the commercial media has tried to portray the Party as a factional force within Cosatu. This is nothing but a divisive political agenda. Our support for both the independence of Cosatu and for the importance of a radical trade union formation fearlessly active within the ANC-led liberation Alliance is not factionalist. A powerful trade union federation that is prepared to be critical of government, the ANC or SACP, without becoming simply anti-government or oppositionist, is what conservatives of all stripes fear most.
In other words, a militant and independent Cosatu does not mean a Cosatu that is in opposition to the ANC and the government it leads. Similarly, robust engagement with government must not lead to oppositionism.
The challenges that Cosatu has faced over the last several years now are not simply the clash of personalities, or simply the outcomes of audit reports and personal scandals within the union movement, significant as these may be. There are also complex, underlying structural factors that have led to the current developments in Cosatu.
There has been a massive, neoliberal-driven global restructuring of the working class since at least the early 1980s. There has been a massive restructuring of the workplace that has led to massive retrenchments, casualisation and labour brokering of the working class. This has in turn led to the global and domestic weakening of the trade union movement.
In South Africa, the 1994 democratic breakthrough ushered in important legislative labour market gains for workers. However, the exploiters invented new methods of undermining these achievements. In addition, the multiple capitalist crises of the mid-1990s as well the great capitalist crisis of 2008, further undermined some of the many gains made by South African workers since 1994.
What we now need, especially in the face of these challenges, is unity, NOT fragmentation! This is why as the SACP we will continue to work together with Cosatu and its affiliates to build and defend a united Cosatu. We reaffirm that Cosatu continues to be a dependable ally of the SACP, and indeed for the ANC as well!
Together, let us intensify the mass mobilisation of the working class to confront the underlying structural forces and processes behind the persistent problems of economic exploitation, class inequality, unemployment and poverty!
When the working class is faced with serious crises, deriving from the endemic crisis of capitalism, there is always the danger of the emergence of many regressive and potentially counter-revolutionary tendencies that have the potential of dividing both the working class and the people's revolutionary camp.
Difficult economic times often breed cheap populism as can be seen with the emergence of opportunistic organisations like the EFF. This organisation is nothing but a false promise to the workers and the poor of our country, led by some of the most corrupt tenderpreneurs whose only claim to fame is theft from the state! Amasela!
From within the ranks of the trade union movement, the difficulties facing workers sometimes lead to the emergence of the cult of the personality - another false promise to the workers of our country, as if the struggle against capitalist exploitation can be led by individual messiahs. This is not true. The struggle against unemployment, poverty and class inequality can only be led by a disciplined and united trade union movement, especially led by a united Cosatu that is part of the liberation Alliance and the Congress movement.
A call for a united and working class led mass mobilisation, headed by our Alliance
The challenges facing our revolution today call for the intensification of mass mobilisation on all fronts, also in honour of leaders like Chris Hani. This situation requires a Cosatu-led mass campaign to organise and service workers in all workplaces. It also means the intensification of the SACP-led campaign for the transformation of the financial sector to serve the workers and the poor of our country and to drive industrialisation.
On this occasion the SACP calls for, amongst others, the convening of a second financial sector summit to assess progress made against the commitments made during the first summit in 2003. Indeed the target year for access to developmental financial services to the workers, the poor, the SMEs and co-operatives was meant to be the year 2015. We call upon Nedlac to convene this summit now in 2015 without any further delay!
The SACP, on this important day and in honour of the memory of Cde Chris Hani, calls upon all Cosatu members to stand up and defend the unity of federation and its founding principles, the principles of one country one federation, and one industry one union. Defend the memory of Chris, defend the unity of Cosatu! Let us defeat all regressive, workerist, egotistic and narrow tendencies within the ranks of the working class! Let us move decisively and implement the second, more radical phase of the democratic transformation of our society based on the vision of the Freedom Charter!
In memory of Chris Hani let us advance cultural transformation!
Rhodes has fallen? The SACP welcomes the debate on the future of the symbols of colonial and apartheid oppression. This debate also opens an important phase in the struggle for the transformation of our learning institutions, especially universities. It potentially also emphasises the need for ideological, including cultural transformation and liberation from white supremacist and colonial thought. All these are crucial dimensions for the advancement of the second, more radical phase of our democratic transition. This must open a space to properly contextualise the history of colonisation, space to tell the history of our heroic struggles for national liberation. This is an opportunity to tell the history of capitalist exploitation. This is, at the same time, the bedrock of the history of colonialism in South Africa and the imperialist exploitation of our country.
For us to develop utmost clarity about where we are going, we need to understand where we are, how we have arrived here, and how the past continues to weigh heavily in the present. Therefore, the struggle for a second, more radical phase of our democratic transition is inseparable from the struggle against capitalism. In a national democratic society the symbols of oppression should not be destroyed. However, they belong to museums or museum parks developed to tell the history, which must not be forgotten. The SACP, therefore condemns the defacing or destructions of those symbols.
In memory of Chris Hani let us build international solidarity and continental unity
Comrade Chris would have hated xenophobia and despised those who perpetrate vicious acts against other Africans, including the looting of their shops. The SACP calls on all our communities to build international solidarity and continental unity, and condemns the violence perpetrated against our fellow African people and foreign nationals. Such acts will not help us solve any problems that we are facing but will only case more problems.
Let us take our cue from Comrade Chris! As a true Communist, Hani was internationalist who crisscrossed a number of countries fighting for freedom, among others Lesotho, Angola and Tanzania. In 1967 Comrade Chris was part of the joint ZIPRA-MK force. ZIPRA, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army was the army of the Zimbabwe African People's Union, ZAPU. The joint force crossed the Limpopo from Zambia and began the first armed resistance against the Smith regime in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia, in the Wankie and Sipholilo Campaigns. Here he worked with a number of Zimbabwean leaders.
Comrade Chris retained a close continental and international relationships. He understood that we need each other to complete our liberation.
Long live the memory of Cde Chris a Hani, long live!!
Issued by the SACP, April 11 2015
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