The Business Incubator, an initiative of the Steve Biko Centre, invites you to a Costing and Pricing Workshop to be hosted in Ginsberg

Facilitator: Lungile Sululu from the Steve Biko Foundation
Date: April 11, 2013
Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, Eastern Cape
Cost: R20

For more information contact Mr. Lungile Sululu on 043 605 6700 or email lungiles@sbf.org.za

NB: Clients are urged to book in advance for the Micro-MBA Workshop.

The Business Incubator, an initiative of the Steve Biko Centre, invites you to a Costing and Pricing Workshop to be hosted in Ginsberg Fac...

Opportunity Closing Date: Monday, April 26, 2013

April 27, 2013 marks 19 years since the first democratic elections in South Africa that paved a way for a new dispensation in the country. While there have been a number of achievements in redefining and redirecting the nation, a number of challenges still prevail. As the nation looks to renew their commitment towards the fight against the legacy of apartheid, we call for reflections under the title “What Does It Mean To Be A South African?”

Publish your article on this topic on the FrankTalk Blog and stand a chance to win one of five Steve Biko Memorial Lecture books.

For more information please contact Ms. Dibuseng Kolisang on 011 403 0310 or via email at dibuseng@sbf.org.za.

Opportunity Closing Date: Monday, April 26, 2013 April 27, 2013 marks 19 years since the first democratic elections in South Africa that...

Solomon Mahlangu was trained as an MK soldier with a view to later rejoining the struggle in the country. He left S.A after the Soweto uprising when he was 19 and was later chosen for an elite force to return to South Africa to carry out a mission commemorating the uprising.

After entering the country through Swaziland and meeting his fellow comrades in Duduza, East Rand, they were accosted by the police in Goch Street in Johannesburg.

In the ensuing gun battle two civilians were killed and two were injured, and Mahlangu and Motloung were captured while acting as decoys so that the other comrade could go and report to the MK leadership.

Motloung was brutally assaulted by the police to a point that he suffered brain damage and was unfit to stand trial, resulting in Mahlangu facing trial alone.

He was charged with two counts of murder and several charges under the Terrorism Act, to which he pleaded not guilty.
Though the judge accepted that Motloung was responsible for the killings, common purpose was argued and Mahlangu was found guilty on two counts of murder and other charges under the Terrorism Act.


On 15 June 1978 Solomon Mahlangu was refused leave to appeal his sentence by the Rand Supreme Court, and on 24 July 1978 he was refused again in the Bloemfontein Appeal Court. Although various governments, the United Nations, international organizations, groups and prominent individuals attempted to intercede on his behalf, Mahlangu awaited his execution in Pretoria Central Prison, and was hanged on 6 April 1979.

His hanging provoked international protest and condemnation of South Africa’s internal policy. In fear of crowd reaction at the funeral the police decided to bury Mahlangu in Atteridgeville. On 6 April 1993 he was reinterred at the Mamelodi Cemetery, where a plaque states his last words;

‘My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom. Tell my people that I love them. They must continue the fight.’

Mahlangu died for a cause!!! Salute!

Solomon Mahlangu was trained as an MK soldier with a view to later rejoining the struggle in the country. He left S.A after the Soweto upr...

The following brief autobiographical account was written by comrade Chris Hani in February 1991:



I was born in a small rural town in the Transkei called Cofimvaba. This town is almost 200 kilometres from East London. I am the fifth child in a family of six. Only three of us are still surviving, the other three died in their infancy. My mother is completely illiterate and my father semi-literate. My father was a migrant worker in the mines in the Transvaal, but he subsequently became an unskilled worker in the building industry.

Life was quite harsh for us and we went through some hard times as our mother had to supplement the family budget through subsistence farming; had to bring us up with very little assistance from my father who was always away working for the white capitalists.

I had to walk twenty kilometres to school every five days and then walk the same distance to church every Sunday. At the age of eight I was already an altar boy in the Catholic church and was quite devout.

After finishing my primary school education I had a burning desire to become a priest but this was vetoed by my father.

In 1954, while I was doing my secondary education, the apartheid regime introduced Bantu Education which was designed to indoctrinate Black pupils to accept and recognise the supremacy of the white man over the blacks in all spheres. This angered and outraged us and paved the way for my involvement in the struggle.

The arraignment for Treason of the ANC leaders in 1956 convinced me to join the ANC and participate in the struggle for freedom. In 1957 I made up my mind and joined the ANC Youth League. I was fifteen then, and since politics was proscribed at African schools our activities were clandestine. In 1959 I went over to university at Fort Hare where I became openly involved in the struggle, as Fort Hare was a liberal campus. It was here that I got exposed to Marxist ideas and the scope and nature of the racist capitalist system. My conversion to Marxism also deepened my non-racial perspective.

My early Catholicism led to my fascination with Latin studies and English literature. These studies in these two course were gobbled up by me and I became an ardent lover of English, Latin and Greek literature, both modern and classical. My studies of literature further strengthened my hatred of all forms of oppression, persecution and obscurantism. The action of tyrants as portrayed in various literary works also made me hate tyranny and institutionalised oppression.

In 1961 I joined the underground South African Communist Party as I realised that national liberation, though essential, would not bring about total economic liberation. My decision to join the Party was influenced by such greats of our struggle like Govan Mbeki, Braam Fischer, JB Marks, Moses Kotane, Ray Simons, etc.

In 1962, having recognised the intransigence of the racist regime, I joined the fledgling MK. This was the beginning of my long road in the armed struggle in which there have been three abortive assassination attempts against me personally. The armed struggle, which we never regarded as exclusive, as we combined it with other forms of struggle, has brought about the present crisis of apartheid.

In 1967 I fought together with Zipra forces in Zimbabwe as political commissar. In 1974 I went back to South Africa to build the underground and I subsequently left for Lesotho where I operated underground and contributed in the building of the ANC underground inside our country.

The four pillars underpinning our struggle have brought about the present crisis of the apartheid regime. The racist regime has reluctantly recognised the legitimacy of our struggle by agreeing to sit down with us to discuss how to begin the negotiations process.

In the current political situation, the decision by our organisation to suspend armed action is correct and is an important contribution in maintaining the momentum of negotiation.

Chris Hani,

February 1991

Retrieved from the South African Communist Party Website at
http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=2294

The following brief autobiographical account was written by comrade Chris Hani in February 1991: I was born in a small rural town in the...

Names: Hani, Thembisile 'Chris'

Born: 28 June 1942, Cofimvaba, Transkei, (now Eastern Cape), South Africa

Died: 10 April 1993, Dawn Park, Boksburg, South Africa

In summary: Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe and General-Secretary of the SACP.

Thembisile Chris Hani was born in the rural village of Sabalele, in the Cofimvaba region of the former Transkei. He was the fifth of the six children of Gilbert and Mary Hani. Three of the five children died young. The name Chris was adopted by him as a nom de guerre, and was in fact the real name of his brother. Chris grew up a devout Christian.

Hani was introduced to the politics of inequality early in life, when his father had to leave their rural home in search of work in the urban areas of South Africa. This had a profound influence on the young Chris, who became aware of his mother's struggle to run the household. Like other young men of his age, Chris tended the livestock until he reached school-going age.

Hani was enrolled at a Catholic school and soon developed a love for Latin. At this stage of his life, Hani's desire was to enter the priesthood, but his father disaproved and moved him to a non-denominational school, Matanzima Secondary School at Cala, in the Transkei. In 1954, a number of Hani's school teachers who were active in the Unity Movement lost their jobs after protestng against the introduction of Bantu education. This played a further role in developing Hani's political ideas. Hani later moved again to the Lovadale Institute in the Eastern Cape, where he matriculated in 1958.

Hani was exposed to Marxist ideology while a student at Fort Hare University, where he also explored his childhood love for the classics and for literature. Hani attended Fort Hare from 1959-1961 and graduated in 1962 from Rhodes University in Grahamstown, with a BA degree in Latin and English. He then moved to Cape Town and worked as an article clerk with the Schaeffer and Schaeffer legal firm from 1962-1963, but did not complete his articles.

Hani was exposed to political thought from a very young age through the influence of his father, Gilbert Hani, who was active in the ANC and eventually left South Africa and sought asylum in Lesotho. However, Hani's political involvement really began in 1957 when he became a member of the African National Congress' Youth League (ANCYL). He sites the conviction of the ANC's leaders in the Treason Trial (1956) as his main motivation to begin participating in the struggle for freedom.

Biography Retrieved from South African History Online at
http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thembisile-chris-hani

Names: Hani, Thembisile 'Chris' Born: 28 June 1942, Cofimvaba, Transkei, (now Eastern Cape), South Africa Died: 10 April 1993, ...