Jeremy Cronin’s opinions on the release of Clive Derby-Lewis as reported in Business Day not so long ago reflect the extraodinary powers of the South African Communist Party that endure almost 25 years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Comrade Cronin alludes to “intelligence, military and arms dealer networks” that may have been behind Chris Hani’s assassination, seeing Derby-Lewis as simply a puppet and “dad’s army white supremacist”. Logically, then, there should be no harm in granting him parole as he is probably himself ignorant of these wider, counter-revolutionary forces against which the Party and the State are valiantly resisting, from the safety of their black luxury cars.
Ridiculous and anachronistic as South African communism might be, it must be worrying to the few thinking people left in our country that prominent communists may override state departments, the courts and even the minister concerned, when it comes to the release of a prisoner on parole. We know that Schabir Shaik and Jackie Selebi found it extremely easy to be released on medical parole, yet Cronin scoffs at the notion that Derby-Lewis should even be allowed to die in dignity, at home and surrounded by his family.
Since the 1970s, French intellectuals have shown how totalitarianism was hard-wired into the thinking of Marx, Engels and Lenin. However, underlying the egalitarian fanaticism of communists, were also the ethnic prejudices of a Stalin, a Beria, a Pol Pot or a Mengistu that meted out mass murder to Ukrainians, Poles, Chinese or the ethnic minorities of Ethiopia.
Communism is a secular religion that precludes political pluralism or tolerance. In our country, Joe Slovo, Chris Hani and others practised urban terrorism, as they saw themselves as above the law, including the Geneva Conventions that prohibited attacks on civilians and non-combatants.
While Cronin polishes his own conspiracy theories, he forgets how the SACP used to be in cahoots with the murderous East European regimes and their intelligence agencies, including the Stasi.
Not only is the SACP caught in an ideological time warp, but it has always demonstrated equally dated Boerehaat tendencies. The fact that Derby-Lewis had sided with Afrikaners in the historical conflict that has always plagued South Africa, makes him that much more hated.
All decent people should insist that Derby-Lewis – a former MP and no common criminal – be released, regardless of ideology. At the same time, we may ask: Why should communists be treated with kid gloves for their past crimes against our civilians? Like the Americans, we should claim civil damages from communist terrorists in local and international courts. Many of them are still alive and culpable.
