"...somebody asked you what were your own kind of personal ambitions, and you talked about going back to being a schoolteacher." _____
<https://studycircle.wikispaces.com/6+CU+Chris+Hani+Archive> CU Chris Hani Archive.png Interview by Padraig O'Malley on 15 August 1991 with Chris Hani (First two pages, of 20 pages) POM We're talking with Chris Hani on the 15th of August. Mr. Hani, I'll start maybe first with an odd kind of a question. But I remember when you were in Washington at the Carnegie breakfast, somebody asked you what were your own kind of personal ambitions, and you talked about going back to being a schoolteacher. And one could look at that assembled audience of political cynics and sceptics who said, Oh, you know, he's certainly not going to do that. And then they have, they more or less have to feel that you had to be consumed by a desire for power. Could you talk a little about how one is engaged in a revolutionary movement and how one distances personal ambition to commitment to the revolution itself? Chris Hani portrait.jpg CH Well, one has got to go back to the early days of one's participation in the revolutionary struggle in this country. Most of us joined the struggle because of objective political conditions that prevailed then. We come from a community which is oppressed, which has no political power in this country, which has no vote. And which is not regarded as comprising the citizenship of this country. So, when we joined the struggle, we wanted to contribute towards democratic changes. And secondly, the one organisation which caught our eyes at the time was the African National Congress. I was a student at one college in the Eastern Cape called Lovedale Institution. And there was clandestine activity of the ANC back then but political activities were not allowed at the college. Now, we as students joined the African National Congress because we were dead against Bantu education which had been imposed in 1954. So, our purpose of struggle as students was the struggle against Bantu education. We wanted an equal education. We perceived Bantu education as being inferior, as preparing us to serve the white government with no decision making on the part of the blacks. But then my participation in the legal struggle was short-lived. I joined the ANC in 1957 and in 1960 the ANC was banned. And immediately after it was banned it became an underground organisation. So, one had to be involved in the banned activities of the ANC. Now, not only was the ANC banned but the government proceeded with its draconian measures, intended, you see, to crush altogether the spirit of resistance in our country. It was at this stage, then, that a section of the ANC leadership felt that after a long and searching analysis of all these events up to the time of the banning of the ANC, certainly the conclusion was reached that we should embark on an armed struggle. And after that uMkhonto was formed. And a year after that, after its formation, I joined it. And I began to be involved in the small-scale operations, you see, using homemade explosives and firearms. After that, there was a strong feeling that we should all go abroad to acquire military training wherever it could be given. First, of course, it was Africa and then the socialist countries. Now, a little bit about my background again. I was born and bred in the Transkei. I'm sure you've been there. I was born in a place about 60 kilometres from Kingwilliamstown and about 100/160 kilometres from Umtata going westwards. I was born in this very tiny rural area. Very impoverished. We had to literally walk 15 kilometres to school every day. There were doubts with regard to whether I'd finish my primary education. The nearest hospital was about 20 or 40 kilometres away. So, it's a background of actual poverty. So, my concern about social justice was a real product of my own experience. I think, comparatively speaking, I was lucky I was able to go to high school. I went to university thanks to a scholarship that I got and did my junior degree at the age of ... I'm a graduate of the Rhodes University in Grahamstown. But even after I graduated, I could have branched into something else. I could have been a lawyer, I could have been a teacher, I could have been anything. But then there was that overriding passion of participation in the struggle against white domination and whites were against us. You see, we faced a real powerful white state, well-armed, with a powerful army, with a powerful police force, powerful administration. But then I felt that my role was to contribute something and if I got a bit of education I should use that education in a system to politicise the people, to rally the people, to mobilise people against white domination so that South Africa could become a democracy. That is what has been my overriding interest and passion, if you like, in the struggle. POM Did you join the SACP before you joined the ANC? CH No, no, no. I joined the SACP four years after I joined the ANC. I joined it in 1961 and I joined the ANC in 1957. Now, my road to the SACP, in my own view, was a logical one. In our country, capitalism and apartheid had fused, they had meshed. Industry, without any exception, supported the oppressive policies of the apartheid regime. They were a partner to the oppression of our people. Capitalists built the most inferior facilities for our people. The hostels, the compounds. In fact, the mines, the owners of the mines were responsible for the introduction of migrant labour. Not only the suppression of families, the breaking down of the fabric of family life amongst the blacks. They supported that because this, for them, this was cheap labour which afforded super profits for the mining magnates. It was not only the mines. You could go to the construction industry, to agriculture, the story was the same, the extreme exploitation of the African worker. My own background encouraged me to ask the social system, the socialist system in this case, which said that exploitation was immoral, was criminal. And that ideal of a classless society, if you like, of the situation where no individual would live off the labour of another individual, given my background and after I had read a few books by Marx, Engels and Lenin, I was attracted to that. When I was approached to join the clandestine South African Communist Party, I had no hesitation whatsoever. Continued. Visit the CU Chris Hani Archive at: <https://studycircle.wikispaces.com/6+CU+Chris+Hani+Archive> https://studycircle.wikispaces.com/6+CU+Chris+Hani+Archive -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. 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