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Being Chris Hani’s Daughter
Lindiwe Hani
& Melinda Ferguson
To the ultimate soldier and gentleman, Martin Thembisile Hani, my father
Authors’ notes
“Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.”
– T.S. Eliot
I was in Europe on 10 April 1993 when news of Communist Party leader, Chris Hani’s bloody murder swept across international airwaves. In fact, I was in Germany. First time out of the confines of a pre-democratic South Africa, on a three-week emancipatory trip to show a film, my boyfriend at the time, Alex and I had made, at an international film festival.
I recall trying to cling to foreboding words in a language I could not understand, spewed from television screens and newspaper headlines. The pictures we watched showed the great struggle icon felled in pitiless pools of blood in his Dawn Park driveway. Many of the images we pored over were taken by The Star’s chief photographer Debbie Yazbek. She was the sister of my then boyfriend, Alex, who, pale-faced and anxious, sat beside me trying to establish what had happened.
I turned to strangers for help to decipher the words; we floundered, lost in translation. It seemed somehow wrong that we were on foreign soil when back home our struggle-shattered land was bleeding.
We had left South Africa so close to transition. Now this news threatened to cast the precarious negotiations into yet more bloodshed. But our land had been bleeding for years. Would this be the tipping point? Would we return to a South Africa pushed over the precipice of peace, thrown now into a devastating civil war that had been looming in the wings for what felt like a 1000 years?
We flew back home a few days later, to a country steeped in chaos.
I first met Lindiwe Hani, daughter to Chris in April 2013, almost twenty years to the day after her father’s passing. I was writing a “Children of the Struggle” cover story for True Love magazine where I’d been working as a journalist and features editor for the last decade.
Lindiwe and I met in a restaurant in Oxford Road Rosebank, close to Thrupps where old and new money meet to buy foie gras.
I am ashamed to admit I hardly saw Lindiwe the person that day; I was far too taken with the idea that I was meeting the Chris Hani’s daughter. The first thing I did was tell her where I was when her father was assassinated.
But I do recall how bubbly and animated she was – I was expecting to find an angry, bitter woman.
At the end of our interview, we briefly spoke about the idea of collaborating on a book on being Chris Hani’s daughter, growing up in the shadow of tragedy. However, I could sense that Lindi was torn and keeping a part of herself back.
It was only much later that I discovered that back then, Lindi was deep in the midst of fighting her own demons with addiction. Being in recovery myself, at the time 14 years clean of a dark addiction to heroin, crack cocaine, dope, alcohol and any other substance that had happened to cross my path, it made total sense that, back in 2013, she was simply not ready to come clean about herself.
In October 2015 I reconnected with Lindi. Timing in telling stories, especially no-holds-barred memoirs, is everything. This time Lindi was much readier and soon the work began. It has not been an easy book to collaborate on, but then I guess nothing worthwhile is ever straightforward. In writing the book I have not only learned about Lindi and the Hani family, but hard truths about myself. As last year unfolded and the project took shape, I had a growing sense that Lindi’s father was giving the book his blessing.
– Melinda Ferguson
For the longest time I dreamed of writing a book. I have a great love for reading and, after Daddy died, I would often immerse myself in amazing stories that would transport me far from my reality. The book I had in mind to write was never about my life or even that of my father’s; the story that fascinated me most was the one about my mother and her sisters.
When Mel interviewed me for her True Love cover story back in 2013, she mentioned that perhaps I should write a book on being my father’s daughter. But at that stage, deep in the clutches of addiction, I was reluctant. My biggest concern was that if I was to write this book, there would be a huge chunk of my story missing and some people would know that I was lying about my drug-fueled life.
A year into my sobriety, in late 2015, I happened to hear Mel on the radio talking about her then latest book Crashed. Almost immediately I reached out to her and so the book came into being. One of my character defects is that I am quite possessive, which proved to be the biggest challenge in the writing of a book about myself with another person. It was at times incredibly difficult to share certain aspects of my life. It was particularly hard to go through the journey of meeting my father’s killer with Mel. There were days I simply didn’t want to communicate – which must have been hell for her. Writing this book challenged me to my core. It’s a book based on my memories, which were often painful. I have learned how to stand up for myself, set boundaries, but most importantly, I’ve learned to be kind and forgive myself.
As much as this book is about my life, it’s also about family, human tragedy and, as corny as it may sound, triumph of the human spirit.
– Lindiwe Hani
PROLOGUE
Dead
“Your father’s been shot.”
I had woken up on Saturday, 10 April 1993, with a joyous song in my 12-year-old heart. The previous day, my mother and I had driven to the mountain kingdom of Lesotho for the Easter weekend.
My older sister Khwezi had a school social on Saturday night so Daddy had offered to stay with her at our family home in Dawn Park, Boksburg, so that he could take her to the hair salon and play taxi in his old Corolla. Khwezi was usually such a bookworm, but she had been really excited about the party.
Although I would miss being with Daddy over Easter, going to Maseru meant a sleepover with my best friend Nomathemba, whom I hadn’t seen for months. From the day we set eyes on each other as energetic five-year-olds on the first day of prep school, we’d been two mischief-makers joined at the hip. We did everything together; I would either cycle to her home or she to mine where we’d play ‘house-house’, go to the movies or just roam the streets of Maseru. We got a huge kick out of telling strangers we were twins. It was totally believable to us as we were both high yella.
Saturdays meant we could go and watch a movie in town. I never really minded what was showing, I just loved getting lost in the dark of the cinema, transfixed as the pictures flickered up on the screen. They would transport me far away from my tightly tucked-away unruliness that came from constantly having to say goodbye to my beloved Daddy, whom we hardly ever saw for more than a few weeks a year. My father always in hiding, and my mother checking our car for bombs every morning, were simply regular events in my childhood.
Double features were my best because as the reels were changed we’d run across to Maseru Café and buy Chappies and Simba chips to eat during the next show.
My father didn’t have time for movies. In fact, I hardly ever saw him switch