THEMBISILE 'CHRIS' HANI: TWENTY SEVEN YEARS ON By Asithandile Gxumisa

If the mountains of Olympus were the seat of the gods of Greece, then the valleys of Thembuland are the seat of the paladins of Africa. For in Cofimvaba of that great realm was born Mr Hani, a giant among pygmies. His comrade-in-arms, Mr Mandela, was also a native of that ancient land, though not exactly his neighbour. An old river runs through Mr Hani's place of birth, and it is from its fascinating name that his village gets its beautiful name. "Cofi" is a Xhosa word that means "to froth", and "mvaba" is a goatskin bag for milk. This river, after a downpour, is said to swell up and froth like a milk-bag. Mr Hani was among three lucky children of his mother who survived death at infancy; the other three were not so lucky. Still, the lot of the latter three was better than the fate of countless children who are today crushed by the scalpel of the humanitarian doctor in the womb. Lucky? I think that Mr Hani's escape was more the work of Providence than the blind generosity of chance. Men of the hour, after all, perish not before their hour.

Men like Thembisile Hani are rarer than the gold of Ophir and, for good or ill, leave marks that are indelible on the psyche of the nation. When his hour had come, Mr Hani did leave his mark and it will last for as long as this democratic Republic endures. We forget such men or their deeds at our own peril, for their example is a lesson that is worth more than all the precious stones of this earth. Today marks the 27th anniversary of the assassination of Chris Hani by the hateful Janusz Waluś. It is a day upon which many historically-minded South Africans may reflect upon the impactful example of his life. It came as a rather embarrassing surprise to me, after a brief but focused inquiry into the life of this man, just how little I knew about him. The marvel of his birthplace I had always known. I knew also about the horror of his death at the hands of a demented racist. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, despite Mr Hani's dalliance with radical politics, he was in his own words an "ardent lover of English, Latin and Greek literature, both modern and classical." That, also, but for the intervention of his father he would have loved to join the priesthood.

His interest in classical literature in particular was the evidence of a soul that had an instinctual feel for beauty, good and that sense of wonder which the modern mind, so darkened by the mercury-vapor lamps of Megalopolis, could never fathom. If one once listened to an African fable told by an elder as Mr Hani must have done in his childhood, then one cannot but be drawn to Aesop's Fables or to the great tragedies of Seneca - all a delight to the moral imagination. It is natural then that Mr Hani, having grown up in a village, displayed an eager interest in the beauty of ancient literature. His Catholic faith, fortified by moral insights he might have acquired from the folktales of his youth, made him stand head and shoulders above his compeers in devoutness. In turn, his strong sense of morality together with his father's absence at home due to work in suburbia, combined to form in him an early aversion to inequality. Then the years at Fort Hare University came. While his interest in good literature remained somewhat intact, his old Christian faith seemed to have given way to a new faith: Marxism.

This false new thing, morally bankrupt and without any roots in the past, swallowed him whole. Parting ways with Christ, he allied himself with Marx. By so doing, Mr Hani had broken fellowship with his forebears; for this new thing, this Marxism of a man of "muddy understandings", had absolutely nothing in common with the traditions and customs of the men of Cofimvaba. It was at this stage that he began to espouse a radical brand of politics. Seeing injustices all about him suffered by his African brethren at the hands of Afrikaaner nationalists, he lost sight of the wisdom of the politics of reform and, instead, reached forward for the politics of revolution. Paradise for the African, Paradise and Paradise Now! His priest must have failed to convince him that 'Paradise on Earth' means, in truth, 'Nowhere'. This world here below belongs to sinners and not saints. Still, the self-sacrificial exertions of Mr Hani in the struggle for "the freedom of us all" command all the laudation and admiration of honest men. He most certainly has my admiration for his great valour - a virtue of which we will soon speak as of the Dodo.

Mr Hani was hopelessly mistaken in his ideological Marxist view of man and society and, like all of us, had a difficult climb to that high pinnacle of virtue. But if we look for angels in our national heroes, we shall be left with none. His deeds, or rather misdeeds, were not so awful as to be beyond the pale of the forgiveness of other men. Truer and wiser words have never been spoken as when Clytemnestra said: "Let her forgive freely who forgiveness needs". Perchance, as Catholics believe, salvation was granted to Mr Hani through grace in death. Christ will not so easily abandon His sheep to thieves like Marx; men whose ideologies work the mischief of devils among mortals. Revolutions devour their children so said a wise political philosopher of yesteryear. The death of Thembisile Hani was a testament to the verity of these prescient words. Be that as it may, his killing was senseless still, and achieved nothing. Waluś' capital cruelty was deserving of capital punishment - for his own sake and that of justice. In a rather odd twist, the very Constitution which was the product of a long and gory struggle in which Mr Hani himself played no small part, ruled out what should have been a deserved sentence for the Polish little devil.

The civil freedoms of our youthful Republic were bought at a high price: the blood of men. Mr Hani's was one of them. Verily, only a baptism of blood could clease the body politic of the malodorous corruption of apartheid. Mr Hani has a good following today, especially among the disgruntled young, almost cultish perhaps for my liking. However, as I have just intimated, this following is amateurish, and many know of the General and not of the aspiring Catholic priest and villager. Less still do they appreciate the wonder of a free country, this rootless and thankless mob of the dreary future. I looked into the man and I saw the glory and the shame, the angel and the devil, the light and the darkness that made him all so human. A closer and fairer examination of his whole exemplary sojourn in this life drives one to the inevitable conclusion that this was an extraordinary man. A giant among pygmies as I call men and women of his historical stature. I know it is not a popular notion in our egalitarian Age to admit that some men and women, unlike so many of us, were called to higher destinies in this life. So the last shall be first, and the first last. Still, it is as true as the Devil is a liar. Mr Hani, as is Mr Mandela, is the pride of our Republic - worts and all. 10 April 1993 should never have been.