How do white South Africans deal with their fears of crime, violence and black people? Like the crocodiles that carpet the country's riverbanks, some survive without evolving, living with their fears. Others make fear their friend and evolve in ways that you would never imagine.
"I don't fear white people, I don't fear Indians, Asians, but black people, sounds horrible, really sounds horrible". After her husband was murdered in cold blood, Chantelle turned her remote farm house into a gilded cage with double electric fences, panic alarms, satellite tracking and perimeter searchlights. Her neighbour, Christa, was robbed and held hostage by 13 armed men. Now her daughter "doesn't like to walk from the TV room to the sitting room alone". "How do you teach a child in South Africa not to be afraid?" asks Johannes, the town's retired pastor, "it has been so emphasised in our history".
"Everywhere you look, you'll see people the same as you, with the same interests", purrs a developer as he introduces a new gated community based around a golf course. The rich snap up plots, no longer feeling that life on remote farmland is safe. The not so rich remain on their farms, and rely upon a complex and insular support system, "The police aren't bothered to drive all the way out to a farm murder so we pick up the slack", says Jan, who runs a security firm with his wife, Lettie. "Every 30 or 40 seconds there is some farm attack or house robbery or rape", Jan says. Business is booming but they haven't had a day off in five years and Jan has had two heart attacks in as many years.
"We live in separate worlds but in the same town", says Johannes, who has worked closely with black people for forty years. "They're like my own people - when I'm with them I forget that I'm white". Yet all of Johannes colleagues are too scared to visit him at work. "My point of departure is that if you've got love in your heart you can't have fear", he says. Yet at the Dutch Reformed Church in the town the solemn service is concerned with preservation of culture and communist threats. As the congregation exits one door, young black men and women enter another with keyboards and drums. The all black congregation builds and swells as they sing ecstatically.
"They don’t understand why I should be the only white person there", says Koos, a salesman who sells herbal remedies down at the much-feared town taxi rank. "I wouldn't even walk down that street on my own", says Chantelle. People become more insular, more insecure and the culture of fear feeds on itself. "The more you hide the more you need to hide" . "It just leads to a disease which spreads until it gets to the roots of the soul". A unique and thought-provoking insight into South Africa today.
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Mark Aitken
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| Making the film |
Mark Aitken left South Africa in 1983. He has over 20 years of experience in the television and film industry. Having worked extensively in film production and in film education since the early nineties, He won his first award for his experimental piece called “As Above So Below” in 2005. Now changing direction slightly, Mark is currently interested in making socially engaged documentaries, such as his latest film “Forests of Crocodiles”.
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| The Producers |
In January 2008 I visited my mother and filmed people to possibly discover a different viewpoint. Sadly, most of what I recorded only confirmed what I had already heard. Then the first national power cuts started – serving as the perfect metaphor for being plunged back into African darkness. One of my visits during this filming research was to a crocodile farm. I was struck by how much the crocodiles served as a metaphor for the white people in terms of their halted evolution and stubborn ability to survive.
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