Dear readers
Here’s another opinion piece i really hope you enjoy, please share your thoughts and comments below.
I don’t usually air my personal views about pre and/or post-apartheid politically aligned South African issues but please allow me. I may have not been in the energetic and passionate crowds of students who marched in Soweto that tragic day which would go down in history as Youth Day when Hector Peterson was gunned down by apartheid police. *(I mention this particular event as it’s symbolic as to how heavy the fight for racial integration and the liberated fight for freedom has been and still continues to be to this day.)
I may have not been there to soak in the horrors and screams of young students that would cement and place the youth of ’76 as great archetype leaders taking charge of their futures. Yet still it affected me and the millions of young black South Africans who are faced with a different fight and an equally crippling struggle.
So the question still remains should Janusz Waluś be set free? While I am pro Hani please note that my pro Hani does not pertain to the preconceived conspiracy that I am anti Mandela (long story).
After reading many forums, watching various documentaries and attentively listening to my father recall the day he actually met Chris Hani as a young anti-apartheid struggle visionary in Port Elizabeth, I noted how my father passionately described Hani as a man of character who possessed exceptional leadership qualities. A man to this day my daddy calls one of the greatest South African leaders that never got the opportunity to be a part of the change.
So while I sit here and read the countless number of articles and public opinions retrospectively speaking the most hated man by black South Africa both young and old. Should the Polish man who gunned down Chris Hani in his drive way in 1993, have his freedom or should the question be does he deserve his freedom?
Waluś has served his time in prison and his due to be released on parole quite soon I think the main contingent matter is not so much about his freedom. Letting Waluś go will be symbolic of not only the past but how his freedom represents the hope and the vision many South Africans still have about the former MK soldier leading the country till this day.
So by freeing Waluś we inevitably ‘kill that dream’, while opening up years and years of old wounds and scars of those leaders, supporters and spectators who have hoped that Hani would lead our country into liberation. To be quite honest I think Waluś should walk, now while expressing my opinion it may or may not pull at some heart strings, causing confusion and anger I say this with the greatest of sympathy taking into consideration the family and supporters (including myself) of Hani.
Simply holding on to the past will not contribute forward motion towards the future, if I have to comfortably place my feet in the shoes of Limpho Hani, widow of Hani I can’t imagine the amount of grief she must be facing at this particular time as all those long lost, some healed and others still widely open wounds must be chastising to her and her family. The death of one of the greatest militant leaders and the bird’s eye view of the South African context since the inauguration of Mandela leave many wondering and I mean many wondering including myself what the South African landscape would look like today.
Had we had the opportunity to have Hani lead the country into liberation, many questions arise as would the majority of South Africans still be living in squalor and extreme poverty, would my mother be living in her half completed RDP house, would the struggle I face daily for economic freedom be such a struggle even five years after graduating from my Alma Mater?
These are the beckoning questions that face many black South African’s daily, the current Government is constantly failing us, our so called president who is not shy of making a public spectacle of himself wastes no time in abusing tax payers money, watching parliamentary debates is like attending a comedy show mid-week. Yet still we are plagued with the questions would this be the case if Hani had lived and been given a chance to lead South Africans?
I don’t have the answers, no single person in this country does we will never know and maybe we were never meant to know, were still a very premature democracy, were in our early twenties, struggling, rebellious, still finding our feet in the global economic climate, Rome was not built in a day. But does Janzus Waluś deserve to rot in jail based on the dream that South Africans still carry about a Hani lead nation?
I think the answer is no! Let him go extending his time in prison will do nothing for the future of this country. I won’t sit here either and say the past is in the past because we are not yet uhuru(free)!
Prolonging a man’s stay in prison based on sentiment when he has clearly served his time won’t change the context of South Africa, yes Janzus is a monster for ending one of the greatest leaders lives who is still celebrated today, he will go down in history as one of the most hated men in South Africa, he will be compared to the likes of Hitler, Putin and De Kock.
We should let him go, forgive him not just for ourselves but for the future of this nation and let’s not highlight his freedom as a privilege of white supremacy because a group on the internet will.
We are the rainbow nation our past has inspired us to go on despite the pain and the poverty, we may not yet be uhuru (free) but were a lot closer than we were, at least I am.
If i have offended anyone in anyway it was not my intention we know people out here on the world wide web can be sensitive.
Have a good day further.
God Bless.
Vee
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