Apartheid
Two part special on SBS Television screening Sunday, May 23, and May 30, 8.30 p.m. (8 p.m. Adelaide)
Previewed by Norm Dixon
This French-produced two-hour documentary starkly recounts the evolution of one of this century's most tyrannical and totalitarian political systems. For anybody who has not studied the history of South Africa and its people's struggle against apartheid in detail, this program, despite flaws, offers an excellent introduction and overview.
As the second episode ends, it will be a rare viewer who is not thoroughly repulsed by the ideology and methods of successive South African regimes and the decades-long protection provided to them by Western governments. Even fewer will fail to be inspired by the courageous and continuous struggle, against enormous odds, of the South African people, led by the African National Congress, which has brought South Africa to the verge of democracy.
The program is a chronology of the most important events in South Africa from the arrival of Dutch and French settlers in the 1650s to the March 17, 1992 white referendum that endorsed the continuation of the negotiation process. The program is weakest when it deals with the early history of South Africa. It skips over the history of the indigenous people of the Cape and their interaction with, and their virtual genocide by, the settlers. Not much is said about the wars of defence waged by the Xhosa and Zulu people against both the Afikaner settlers and the English military.
The early part of the documentary focuses on the development of the Afrikaner identity and its "laager" mentality following the British seizure of the Cape in 1806, the Afikaners' "Great Trek" to areas outside British control in the 1830s, and the Boer War in which the British — aided incidentally by Australian troops — committed terrible atrocities on Afrikaner prisoners and internees in their zeal to grab South Africa's rich gold and diamond deposits.
The mining barons needed a cheap and reliable work force to unearth this wealth, and black South Africans were drafted for this. In Natal Indian labourers were imported to work the sugar cane fields. The film makes plain that long before the formal establishment of apartheid in 1948, institutionalised racism to maintain this pliant work force without rights was in place under British rule and strengthened continually after independence in 1910. Then follows an awful catalogue of racist and authoritarian laws.
But from the beginning, the oppressed fought back. This is the most powerful aspect of the documentary. Archival footage captures many of the most important chapters of this resistance. We see the early campaigns of non-violent protest led by a young Mahatma Gandhi, the formation of the African National Congress in 1912, the 1952 Defiance Campaign, the marathon 1956 treason trial, the burning of passes, the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. Included is a BBC interview with a young ng why the ANC had to consider turning to armed struggle, and film of the defiantly raised fists of Mandela and Walter Sisulu as they are transported to Robben Island after their arrest.
Of particular interest is the focus on the role of women and youth in the struggle. From the famous singer Miriam Makeba, the women in the townships, the white democrats of the Black Sash, and Winnie Mandela, women have been at the forefront.
In the '70s the youth picked up the banner following the repression of the '60s. We see the strike waves of the early '70s, the Soweto youth uprisings in 1976 and the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement. A interview with Steve Biko just prior to his brutal murder in custody is shown. These events coincide with a massive war effort unleashed by President Botha, backed by the US, in Namibia, Angola and Mozambique.
The second episode concentrates on the period from 1983 to the present. Beginning with the formation of the United Democratic Front, we see the powerful movement that snowballed throughout the '80s and which was so tenacious it forced the regime to unban the liberation movement, release Mandela and begin negotiations. There is horrific footage of the consequences of the regime's desperate attempts to halt the movement with terrorist bombings and assassinations throughout the world.
The program is not perfect. Important historical events are not mentioned, the most glaring omission being the 1955 Congress of the People which drafted the famous Freedom Charter. Nor is it a comprehensive history of the liberation organisations — the split of the Pan Africanist Congress from the ANC, and the reasons for it, are not mentioned.
More serious is the underplaying of the insidious role of Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi and his Inkatha organisation. In the final minutes, the deadpan narrator naively declares that the whites-only referendum meant that apartheid had been "scrapped", the falsehood of the assertion being illustrated by subsequent events.
But despite these faults, as the credits roll, the viewer is left angry at the crimes perpetrated by apartheid and inspired by a powerful, determined people that has brought that evil system to its knees.