Anniversaries & commemorations (*updated)

Largely overshadowed in the current media storms was the anniversary on Saturday of the assassination of Chris Hani. On 10 April, 1993, Hani was killed by right-wing extremists as he returned home to racially mixed suburb of Johannesburg. Hani was active in the apartheid resistance from the early 1960's on, and he was, among other roles, a popular leader of the South African Communist Party. Hani's death is widely viewed as a critical loss to the nation's leadership cadre right when the new nation was being forged. His killers were caught and convicted, and the TRC determined that his killers, who are still imprisoned for the crime, were not acting as part of a right-wing conspiracy (although some of his family and other supporters still appeal for a full disclosure of the circumstances of his death). In an ironic twist, the new constitution that they surely opposed spared Hani's killers from death sentences. Here are links to an overview of Chris Hani's life and to Nelson Mandela's speech at Hani's funeral. Many prominent South Africans have paid tribute to Chris Hani, including Blade Nzimande, Jeremy Cronin, and Tokyo Sexwale. These are easily found on the web.


Another tragedy being commemorated in April, also in Africa and from the same era but of an incomprehensible scale, is the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Starting on the night of April 6th, after the shooting down of a small plane which had the presidents of both Rwanda and neighboring Burundi on board, a mass slaughter began that would claim the lives of over 800,000 people (10% of the nation's population) in a mere 100 days. The details of this horror are numbing, and its roots and reverberations are complex. It was, as the title of an episode of PBS's Frontline declared "A Triumph of Evil," a near total moral collapse of an entire society. It was also a shameful abdication of responsibility on the part of members of the international community (including the US and the UN) who had the necessary information and means to have intervened to stop the bloodshed. (The Frontline website is an excellent resource to learn more.)

Here at UCT, the East African Student Society held a sober commemoration of the genocide. There were speakers, including officials from the Rwandan consulate, the reading of testimonies from survivors, and the screening of a documentary, "When Good Men do Nothing" (The BBC Panorama version of the Frontline program). Both titles come from words attributed to Edmund Burke:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

The professor of the course I took also spoke. He was typically eloquent as he warned us in the audience to remember "how quickly we humans succumb to base and low instinct" during these "extraordinary examples or barbarism." He also exhorted us to apply the privilege of our university educations to the meaningful work of "expanding the boundaries of inclusion." His conviction is powerful when he speaks, and it makes sense that he has been appointed to the position of deputy vice-chancellor, responsible for, among other things, the institution's transformation strategy. (The UCT website has published a nice profile of him.)

One more April commemoration is the upcoming 30th anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence. While the holiday in Zimbabwe is this Sunday, 18 April, UCT's active and numerous Zimbabwean student group is hosting a retrospective lecture presentation this Thursday evening. South Africa has absorbed a large population of refugees from its troubled neighbor (related article and slide show), and, despite continuing support for Robert Mugabe from the ANC government, South Africa has recently taken a more active role in helping bring peace and order to Zimbabwe after years of conflict and unrest. (See post from March 20th.) I look forward to attending that event.