Turn the lights down low for Cyril - enter the Ghost of Chris Hani

A Counterfactual Commentary

Background

When Cyril Ramaphosa endured what observers described as a "show trial" in Donald Trump's Oval Office on 21 May 2025, there was an absence that spoke volumes. Had Chris Hani been alive to witness his successor being subjected to apartheid-era propaganda videos and false claims about white farmer persecution, the meeting would have unfolded in dramatically different fashion.

The contrast between what transpired and what might have been reveals profound questions about dignity, sovereignty, and the price of diplomatic accommodation in post-apartheid South Africa.

The Revolutionary's Vision

Chris Hani, assassinated in 1993 on the eve of South Africa's democratic transition, embodied a philosophy that would have made Trump's ambush impossible. As chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe and a leading figure in the South African Communist Party, Hani's worldview was built on revolutionary socialism, non-racialism, and an unwavering commitment to economic transformation alongside political liberation. Unlike many liberation leaders who focused primarily on political rights, Hani understood that true freedom required dismantling the economic architecture of apartheid. "We are not going to achieve our freedom through talk alone," he famously declared, but his vision extended far beyond armed struggle to encompass a fundamental restructuring of South African society.

Hani's philosophy synthesised African nationalism with Marxist-Leninist principles, but always through the lens of practical politics. He believed that capitalism was inherently linked to racial oppression in South Africa, arguing that dismantling apartheid without addressing economic inequality would leave black South Africans impoverished. This wasn't abstract theorising - it was the foundation of his political programme, indeed some might argue that it is exactly what has transpired in the post-apartheid period.

The Strategic Alternative: Why Hani Would Never Have Attended

Chris Hani, having witnessed Trump's brutal "inquisition" of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just months earlier, would never have walked into what was so obviously a diplomatic trap. A revolutionary with his political acumen wouldn't have attended the meeting at all. Hani would have recognised the invitation for what it was -an opportunity for Trump to publicly humiliate a Global South leader - and refused to legitimise the process entirely. There would have been no delegation with white golfers as "olive branches." Such gestures would have been completely antithetical to Hani's worldview. He wouldn't have attempted to manage or soften relations through symbolic accommodations designed to placate American prejudices. Instead, Hani would have issued a public statement: "We've observed how President Trump conducts these meetings. South Africa will not participate in theatrical humiliations disguised as diplomacy. When America is ready for respectful dialogue between sovereign equals, we shall be available."

The refusal itself would have been the political statement - more powerful than any walkout because it refuses to grant legitimacy to a fundamentally demeaning process. Why legitimise a forum designed to humiliate you when you can expose its true nature by declining to participate?

Someone who understood that dignity and material transformation were inseparable wouldn't have placed himself in a position where his dignity could be so publicly assaulted in the first place. This is what Ramaphosa, with his more conciliatory accommodationist mindset, could not and did not understand, and so the meeting did in fact take place. Cyril was bushwhacked or ambushed with Trump invoking the lyrics from one of Bob Marley’s more popular love songs. Unfortunately for the Head of State, Trump did not want to give him any love. Quite the contrary.

The Ambush That Was

The meeting between Trump and Ramaphosa demonstrated precisely why Hani's approach would have been so different. Trump's performance, playing out-of-context videos, handing over printouts of articles supporting claims about white farmer persecution, and generally treating the South African president like a wayward colony's representative, represented exactly the kind of neocolonial interference Hani had spent his life fighting.

Ramaphosa's "measured" response, praised by some as diplomatic professionalism, would have been anathema to Hani. Where Ramaphosa pushed back diplomatically whilst hoping to "reset relations" and salvage trade access under AGOA, Hani would have rejected the entire premise of the encounter.

Let’s relax our first premise and imagine Hani did in fact attend the meeting. The moment when Trump played his propaganda videos would have been the point of no return for Hani. Rather than sitting through what amounted to a lecture based on apartheid-era conspiracy theories, he would have immediately called out what was happening: "Mr President, I didn't come here to be lectured with apartheid propaganda videos. If you want to discuss South Africa's future, let's talk about how American corporations profited from our oppression for decades."

The Ernie Els Moment

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of how Hani would have responded concerns the role of Ernie Els and other white South Africans in Ramaphosa's delegation. When Els spoke of how "two wrongs don't make a right" and referenced the need for reconciliation, he was articulating a position that Hani would have found deeply problematic.

Hani would have seen Els' formulation as a false equivalency, comparing the historical crime of apartheid with efforts to correct its economic legacy. The golf champion's suggestion that responding to apartheid's injustices with land redistribution and economic transformation constituted another "wrong" would have provoked a sharp response. "Ernie, with respect," Hani might have said, "land redistribution and economic transformation aren't 'wrongs', they're corrections of historical theft. When you say, 'two wrongs don't make a right,' you're suggesting that justice for the dispossessed is equivalent to the original injustice. Mandela's reconciliation was about political integration, but it was never meant to preserve economic apartheid."

The moment when white South African delegates "appeared to side with their host" would have been even more significant. Hani would have directly addressed this betrayal in front of Trump: "I see some of my delegation finds it easier to agree with foreign power than defend their own country's sovereignty. This is exactly why economic transformation remains incomplete, when push comes to shove, old loyalties resurface."

The Dignity Question

What made Hani different from many other liberation leaders was his understanding that dignity and material conditions were inseparable. He wouldn't have seen the choice between maintaining diplomatic relations and defending South African sovereignty as a dilemma requiring careful navigation. For Hani, accepting humiliation in pursuit of economic benefits would have been a betrayal of everything the liberation struggle represented.

One media description of the meeting as resembling "a dressing-down reminiscent of the one that saw Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy barely maintain his composure" captures exactly why Hani would most likely have walked out. He wouldn't have "barely maintained his composure", he would have used the platform to articulate a vision of genuine decolonisation and challenge American hypocrisy directly.

"Mr President," he might have concluded, "South Africa is not a client state begging for American approval. We fought too hard for our freedom to surrender it in your office."

The BRICS Alternative

That Ramaphosa might need to seek Vladimir Putin's help as "one of the few foreign leaders who apparently has Trump's ear", provides us with irony. Putin would probably have been Hani's starting point, not his last resort. Rather than seeing this as a humiliating necessity, Hani would have framed it as vindication of his argument that South Africa needed to build relationships with partners who respected its sovereignty.

Hani had always been internationalist in outlook, believing that South Africa's struggle was part of broader liberation movements worldwide. He would have seen Trump's bullying as proof that the West remained committed to maintaining neo-colonial relationships and would have argued for building alternative partnerships based on mutual respect rather than dominance.

The BRICS framework, which Ramaphosa now chairs, would have represented exactly the kind of South-South cooperation Hani championed. Rather than desperately trying to maintain access to American markets through AGOA, he would have argued for developing trade relationships that didn't require accepting lectures about domestic policy from foreign powers. AGOA stands for African Growth and Opportunity Act, it is America's main trade program with Africa.

The Price of Principles

Would Hani's approach have been economically costly? Almost certainly. Trump's threats regarding tariffs and trade access weren't idle, they represented real consequences for taking a principled stand. But Hani understood that some prices were worth paying for dignity and sovereignty. His philosophy always emphasised that true independence sometimes required short-term sacrifice for long-term freedom. He would have argued that accepting humiliation to maintain market access was a form of economic colonialism that ultimately undermined the very sovereignty the liberation struggle had fought to achieve.

"Better to be poor and free," he might have argued, "than prosperous and on our knees."

The Unfinished Revolution

Perhaps most significantly, Hani would have used the encounter to highlight what he saw as the unfinished nature of South Africa's transformation. The fact that white South Africans in the delegation could side with Trump's position would have been, for Hani, evidence that reconciliation without economic transformation had failed to address fundamental power imbalances.

Hani believed that Mandela's approach to reconciliation, whilst politically necessary, was incomplete without material transformation. The Trump meeting would have provided perfect illustration of his argument: that without changing economic relationships, political independence remained fragile and subject to external pressure.

Legacy and Leadership

The contrast between Ramaphosa's diplomatic accommodation and how Hani would have responded illuminates broader questions about leadership in post-apartheid South Africa. Ramaphosa, described as "one of Africa's most seasoned negotiators," brought exactly those skills to bear, but Hani would have argued that some situations require revolution, not negotiation. The meeting's aftermath, with South Africa facing "steep tariffs, deeper interference in its domestic policy, and an awkward transfer of the G-20 to the US", might have vindicated Hani's approach. Sometimes, he would have argued, refusing to be humiliated produces better long-term results than accepting it in hopes of maintaining relationships.

Had Chris Hani lived to see that Oval Office encounter, there would have been no videos, no lectures, and no South African delegates siding with foreign power against their own government. There would have been a walkout, a powerful articulation of South African sovereignty, and a clear statement that some forms of dignity cannot be traded for economic access. Whether that would have served South Africa's interests better remains an open question. But it would certainly have served its dignity, something Hani would have argued was worth more than all the trade deals in the world.

The New Geopolitical Reality

Importantly, the strategic calculations that would have informed Hani's defiant stance are fundamentally different today than they were in 1993. When Hani was assassinated on the eve of democracy, South Africa emerged into a unipolar world dominated by Western institutions, where rejecting American demands might have meant genuine isolation. The Soviet Union had collapsed, China remained largely closed to the global economy, and developing nations had few alternatives to Western-dominated financial systems and markets.

Today's multipolar world has transformed these dynamics entirely. The rise of China as an economic superpower, the expansion of BRICS into a credible alternative economic bloc, the growth of South-South trade networks, and the emergence of institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank provide South Africa with genuine choices that simply didn't exist during Hani's era. What I have presented as a costly but principled stance would, in today's context, represent smart strategic positioning. Hani's vision of non-alignment and South-South solidarity (once a luxury that developing nations could ill afford) has become a realistic alternative to Western dependency. The very fact that Ramaphosa now chairs BRICS while facing American ultimatums illustrates how the geopolitical landscape has vindicated Hani's internationalist philosophy. In this new dispensation, freeing the mind from colonial mentality means recognising that South Africa no longer needs to choose between dignity and prosperity, it can pursue both through partnerships with nations that respect its sovereignty. This transformed reality makes Hani's approach not just morally appealing, but strategically sound.

Hani's greatest challenge, were he alive today, would not have been confronting Trump's bullying, but rather addressing a more insidious obstacle: the deeply entrenched belief amongst South Africa's middle classes (both black and white) that the country simply cannot survive without foreign investment. This psychological dependency, possibly rooted in the traumatic memories of international isolation during apartheid, has become so embedded in the national consciousness that even the most progressive leaders find themselves genuflecting before foreign capital. Ramaphosa's supplicant behaviour in that Oval Office was not merely personal weakness, but symptomatic of a broader national mindset that prioritises economic accommodation over sovereign dignity. Hani would have recognised that until South Africans could be convinced that sovereignty and self-respect are worth more than any amount of foreign investment, true liberation would remain elusive. The revolution, he might have argued, would need to begin in the mind before it could transform the economy.