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Being Chris Hani's Daughter. Ferguson Hani
Читать онлайн.Название Being Chris Hani's Daughter
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781920601850
Автор произведения Ferguson Hani
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство Ingram
In that same year, Daddy and Mama – who were now married – relocated to Lesotho, Maseru, where they would live together as a family for the next seven years, welcoming all three of us girls into their lives.
After the shattering night of the Lesotho Raids in December 1982, it became clear that all of our lives, but especially Daddy’s, were in great danger. He was redeployed to Mozambique and for the following eight years he remained in exile, spending most of his time in Zambia.
While in exile, Daddy’s influence within the organisation and back home in South Africa grew enormously. Between 1983 and 1984 he was appointed second in command of MK and frequently travelled between Mozambique and Angola, where he helped address concerns among dissatisfied MK cadres who were threatening mutiny in the organisation’s military camps.
Daddy was forced to leave Mozambique when the Nkomati Accord was signed in March 1984 between the governments of Mozambique under Samora Machel, the leader of FRELIMO, and the then president of South Africa, PW Botha. Under the Accord, the two neighbouring countries agreed not to allow their countries to be used as launching pads for attacks on one another – in other words, not harbour ‘terrorists’ and enemies of the South African regime, such as my dad. As a result, Mozambique, a war-torn country economically dependent on South Africa, was forced to expel the ANC from their country. In turn, the South African government agreed to cease supporting RENAMO, an anti-government guerrilla organisation in Mozambique. Not surprisingly, the agreement was soon broken by the South Africans, who continued to clandestinely support the activities of RENAMO.
Just 10 months later, in January 1985, Daddy received the highest number of votes for a seat on the Politburo, at the SACP’s sixth conference. It was the same year that the first State of Emergency was declared in South Africa. The townships had become ungovernable as the power of the MK structures and NGOs grew among South Africans at home, resisting the apartheid regime.
Broadcast from various neighbouring African countries, Daddy often spoke on Radio Freedom, the ANC underground radio station, urging people to derail the apartheid military machine.
“If you are working in a factory which produces weapons, vehicles, trucks which are used by the army and police against us,” he advised listeners, “… you must ensure that there are frequent breakdowns in those machines you operate. You can clog some of them by using sugar and sand.”
By mid-1987 my dad had been appointed MK Chief of Staff. Over the next few years, under his leadership, campaigns to sabotage and destabilise South Africa intensified. He was always clear that the only way that white South Africa would ever wake up to the reality of the viciousness of apartheid was when they experienced terror themselves.
In an interview with The Christian Science Monitor, an international publication, he famously said: “When we began to attack targets in the white areas, for the first time white South Africans began to sit up and say: ‘This thing is coming.’ … When they actually began to hear explosions in the centre of Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban, they began to realise that what they saw happening in other countries … was beginning to take place in South Africa.”
Over the years, especially in the mid- and late-1980s, due to his uncompromising military approach, Daddy’s reputation grew to near-mythical status among young exiles and the oppressed in the country of his birth, especially among the militant black youth in the townships.
In 1989 Daddy moved to the big house in Woodlands, Lusaka. As one of the South African government’s most wanted men, he now had two permanent teams of bodyguards accompanying him around the clock – and, of course, the guard dogs in the garden I remember so well from my time there.
A few months after his move to Woodlands, in February 1990, the ANC and SACP were unbanned in South Africa.
CHAPTER 5
Unbanned
On Friday, 2 February 1990, news broke that the ANC had been unbanned and Nelson Mandela was to be released. This could only mean one thing for our family … As I walked down the passage towards our flat on the second floor after school that Friday afternoon I heard a huge commotion. Sounds of jubilation could be heard all the way down the stairs. I rushed inside to find Mama screaming, “Daddy is coming home, Daddy is coming home!”
I could not contain my excitement. Stumbling over my words, my first question was, of course, “When?” Face gleaming with joy, Mama didn’t yet have any details. All she knew was that the ANC had been unbanned, Mandela was to walk free and my father’s freedom would soon follow. That day will forever be etched in our psyches. Just as the Americans have their “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” or “What were you doing on 9/11?”, we have our “Where were you when Mandela was released?” Little did we know at the time that within just three years, “What were you doing when Chris Hani was assassinated?” would become the refrain.
Nine days after the ANC’s unbanning, on 11 February, we watched on TV as Madiba walked out of prison, which we recorded for prosperity on our old VHS machine. I remember the palpable joy radiating from all the grown-ups in the room, glued to the events unfolding on the small screen. Up until that moment, I don’t think I quite realised the enormity of the occasion.
For impatient me, now almost 10 years old, change did not come half as quickly as I had hoped it would. Although the laws had changed in February, in real time we only moved back to South Africa with Daddy at the end of the year, in December 1990. During this time I finished Class 5 in Maseru in July and began Class 6 in September. I was livid with my mother, who insisted that instead of following all my friends into Mrs Bean’s class, I was forced to follow in Khwezi’s footsteps and go to Mr Ramsey’s class. He was a tall, balding, intimidating man who still referred to Zimbabwe as ‘Rhodesia’ – need I say more? Mama’s reason for what seemed to me a highly unjust decision was that my friends were a distraction because, in her eyes, all we ever did was talk. Mr Ramsey’s favourite instrument was a wooden metre ruler, which he used to smack the shit out of you. Alternatively, he would make you stand on the table and force you to sing. I felt isolated and extremely lonely during that period, away from all my friends whom I had been with since Class 1. Once again, due to our circumstances, I was separated from that which others considered ‘normal and safe’, something I would have to deal with a lot in years to come.
During our year of uncertainty, Mama and I made several trips to South Africa to find ourselves a new home and school for me. They were exciting times, tinged with a breath of hope. There was no longer any need to hide, no squeezing into the boot of a car to get over the border undetected. We could literally smell the sweet scent of freedom in the air.
My parents decided to settle in Dawn Park, near Boksburg, in what had previously been a white suburb, mainly inhabited by conservative Afrikaners. I didn’t notice any of that. The first time we drove into Dawn Park I was blown away by the beauty of the place: neat houses, green grass, a picket-fence paradise, all safe and suburban – not unlike my fantasy of the Huxtable home.
The first time I saw the house we were to move into I immediately fell in love with the facebrick perimeter walls. The fact that it was nestled into the tail end of a cul de sac made me feel all safe and cosy. Walking through the security gate into the house, huge open spaces with arched doorways welcomed us. When through the sliding glass I spotted a swimming pool in the back yard, I literally yelped with joy. But the deal was sealed for both Mama and me when we encountered the kitchen. It was like one you might see today on a cooking show on TV. It was certainly the biggest kitchen I had ever seen, with white cupboard doors with tan wooden handles, plus an island-type butcher’s block in the middle of the L-shaped room. It seemed to ooze with master-chef potential. Of course, to me, having grown up within the confines of a flat, everything looked enormous in that house. Without hesitation, my mother and I agreed that this would be our new home. The fact that it wasn’t even up for sale did nothing to deter Mama, who quickly convinced the owners to accept her offer.
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