Hlengiwe Mkhize
IN 2016, families of the victims of gross human rights violations are protesting, wanting to know how their loved ones died, calling for justice and demanding the truth.
Surviving family members can never be silenced. Each generation has the right to know.
In South Africa inequalities create a conducive environment for anger and frustrations in the case of those who lost out the most.
Levels of poverty and unemployment, which tend to be predominantly a black problem, further complicate a generational challenge of nation-building and the attainment of a common identity and a common vision.
Sometimes, rightfully or wrongfully so, all white people are seen as beneficiaries.
In the current effort to curb racism and racial hatred, one needs to find ways of mobilising the nation so as to have consensus about what interventions will bring about new beginnings, inspire the future and promote social cohesion.
To engage in the debate, I would make a special reference to the daughter of Chris Hani, who was with him at the time of his assassination.
Chris Hani was killed in 1993 by the Polish immigrant Janusz Walus in Dawn Park. Nomakhwezi was only 15 at the time of her father’s death.
The assassination took place in her presence, and she was too young to comprehend what had happened.
On my arrival to express my condolences to the family, and solidarity with fellow emotionally injured comrades, I was asked by Tenjiwe Mtintso, the leader who had worked very closely with Hani and who was a leader in her own right, to offer trauma counselling to the children, especially Nomakhwezi, to minimise the impact of trauma.
Limpho, the wife and the mother of Nomakhwezi, was numb and frozen throughout, up to the day of the funeral.
The children, especially Nomakhwezi, would try to express their feelings. Nomakhwezi, who had seen a lot, struggled to express her feelings, beyond making reference to her friendship with her dad.
Nomakhwezi struggled to make reference to her father’s killer, beyond saying: “He came to this country only to kill my father.”
Each time she wanted to talk about the shock, it was like she was in a trance and she would freeze. They were close, she loved her dad, and she could only say I miss him so much.
Reflecting back, the whole country descended on Dawn Park.
Houses in the neighbourhood were often deserted and in some instances the curtains were closed as though there was no one.
There were hardened, righteous racists who would stand on top of the bridge, throwing stones at mourners who were driving in private cars and taxis, and some walking to see the spot where Chris Hani was murdered in the driveway of the family house.
At the age of 23, Nomakhwezi Ratu (Lerato) Hani was found dead in the morning. She had gone to bed holding her asthma pump.
The rumours around Noma-khwezi’s life in the media and the public discourse in general were often removed from her family history of survival and incredible courage to fight the apartheid regime.
We all know that even the most resilient soldier is not a rock, carries a burden of irreconcilable emotions, ranging from a determination to fight to extreme forms of generalised anxiety and fear.
Nomakhwezi was not only the primary victim during the assassination of her father, but her whole childhood was about parents who had dedicated their life to the liberation of the people of South Africa, using all means, including the armed struggle.
The current debate on the release of Janusz Walus, who was given a life sentence in prison for the brutal murder of Chris Hani, inevitably compels one to reflect on how we dealt with the past, especially through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Some segments of society had constantly argued that our reconciliatory approach to accounts of racial hatred and prejudice, as it was examined through killings, murders, torture and many other forms of human suffering and dehumanisation, promoted impunity and deprived South Africa of an opportunity to boldly tackle it.
In 1997 she and her mom, Limpho, appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I tried to reach out to Khwezi about her experience of the session during the hearings, which focused on her father’s death.
She wept as the perpetrators gave a narrative of the plot to assassinate Hani.
What I remember is that, although in 1997 she was now above 21, she seemed to be as deeply hurt as she was as a teenager, when she did not know how to deal with the pain of knowing that the dead will not come back, but still Khwezi did not understand why they assassinated her father.
It was like Khwezi lost her life at the time of her father’s death.
The national debate about the release of Janusz Walus is an injustice if it does not help the family to bring closure to their double tragedy.
Walus had only assassinated Chris and did not target Khwezi, who was with him.
But Khwezi was emotionally wounded and the pain overwhelmed a 15-year-old at a critical stage of identity formation. She never recovered.
As a society we failed Khwezi, as she died in search of the truth and justice about the assassination of her father. She never understood, why him?
It is critical to create spaces for intergenerational questions so as to heal child survivors of families who lived through the experience of gross human rights violations.
For those who were found guilty of such crimes, they cannot be released, except when it will be a form of justice and help victims to gain closure.
As a society, we cannot promote impurity, especially if we want to eliminate racial tension and even hatred among future generations.
How we handle issues of justice should have an educational element for future generations, so as to ensure “never again” to any South African child like Nomakhwezi Hani, who died with an internalised sense of an unjust society, which colluded in silence with perpetrators of racial crimes against humanity under the guise of reconciliation.
l Mkhize is a former commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and also Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services