South Africa - War and Peace - 56 min 41 sec
directed by Jurgen Schadeberg
(Ref: 3468)
| TIME-CODE | DESCRIPTION | SPEECH |
| 00:02:22 | Black and white footage of South African miners. | Narration: The modern history of South Africa begins under ground. Where a vast army of black workers mine the diamonds and the gold in which the countries prosperity is based. |
| 00:02:32 |
| Don Mattera: The mines are South Africa's wealth. Gold was discovered in 1886, and that was when the first racial laws were introduced. The rush for diamonds in Kimberly also led to urbanisation. The Boers, the English, and the other foreigners that came to the country also tussled for the wealth. |
| 00:02:56 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: War between a handful of Boers and a gathering British Imperial Army broke out in 1899. When conventional warfare failed to give the British the victory they sought, they turned on the Boer women and children. Thousands of farms were put to the torch and tens of thousands women and children were herded into concentration camps; the first in the world. Only five thousand Boer Soldiers died in battle, nearly thirty thousand women and children perished in the camps. |
| 00:03:22 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: Twelve years later, the national party was formed to spearhead resistance against continuing British domination. The slogan of it's leader, General Hertzog was, 'South Africa first', his political objective, power. |
| 00:03:40 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: The war had left the Boer's living in poverty. Their new British overlords stripped them of many privileges but left intact their right to vote. Black South African's weren't as lucky. A group of professional Blacks, under the leadership of Pixley Seme, decided the time had come to attack. |
| 00:03:55 |
| Don Mattera: The African National Congress (ANC) was formed on the 8th of January 1912. |
| 00:04:02 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: The ANC was committed to a peaceful protest, and there was plenty to protest about. For instance, legislation was introduced to strip Blacks of their right to the land and handed it to whites, who were eager to work it. |
| 00:04:22 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: An ever-stricter pass law and curfew system was designed to control and restrict the movement of the Blacks in and out of the city. |
| 00:04:36 | Archive b/w footage African National Congress | Narration: Twice the ANC sent a delegation to London to plead their case with the empirial government. It's leader was journalist Sol Plaatje. Primeminister, Lloyd George was sympathetic but that's where it ended. Through the First World War, Plaatje lingered in Britain in the hopes of gathering support for his cause, but he was up against heavy odds. |
| 00:04:58 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: The South African leader, General Jan Smuts also came to Britain. Now hailed as a visionary and a war hero, he in one speech, “it has been our ideal to make South Africa a White man's country”. |
| 00:05:11 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: The final blow came at the Versailles peace conference; The ANC had hoped that the International peace conference would adopt their cause. It was no to be however. |
| 00:05:21 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: Back at home, the ANC organised protests against the class system. Peaceful protests that, nonetheless, ended in hundreds of arrests. |
| 00:05:31 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: Miners Strikes involving both Whites and Blacks were a feature of the post war period in South Africa, culminating in the Rand Revolt of 1922. |
| 00:05:39 |
| Don Mattera: The 1922 Miners Strike was spearheaded by the South African Communist Party. For the first time the voice of the White working class was beginning to be heard. It was also then that the racial problems of the country were being highlighted. |
| 00:06:00 | Archive b/w footage | Narrator: White miners have always been paid more than the blacks, and had all the best jobs. But in 1921 the price of gold fell, and the mine owners said they had to cut costs by employing Blacks more cheaply in jobs previously reserved for Whites. The Whites, terrifyed by what they called the Black Peril, seized the mines. The strikers were bombed in submission and four of their leaders went to the gallows singing, 'The Red Flag'. |
| 00:06:36 | Archive b/w footage | The depression years of the late1920s and 30s saw the continued decline of the ANC and a corresponding rise of Afrikaans and Nationalism; which, by the outbreak of war had been united under the baton of the National Party leader, Doctor Daniel Malan. |
| 00:06:51 | Archive b/w footage
- News paper clipping – 1939- 'War Declared', 'The King Speaks to his people
-Army procession | When Britain declared war on Germany, General Smuts, with a small parliamentary majority, decided to throw in his lot with Britain. South Africa was put on a war footing. Doctor Malan announced Smuts saying, “He has turned South Africa into a Jewish, Imperialist war machine. |
| 00:07:13 | Archive b/w footage | As the prodominatly white soldiers left for service in North Africa and in Italy, so Blacks were drawn into the cities and the factories. By the end of the war there was as many Blacks in the cities as Whites, jostling together in the same job market. |
| 00:07:27 |
| The war was won in Europe, a quiet revolution of black advancment was won in South Africa. But black advancement was just another name for the 'Black Peril' in the nationalist parties eyes, and gave them a formulae for victory in the first post war election in 1948. |
| 00:07:42 |
| Apartheid was the name Doctor Malan gave his new strategy, and his cabernet was the first to be composed purely of Afrikaaners. They drew a programme that was not only to separate Black from White but Black from Black as well. |
| 00:07:59 |
| Don Mattera: The people were divided into ethnic groups; the old concept of divide and rule. |
| 00:08:08 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: The ANC demanded the repeal legistation that effectively constituted the cornerstone of the ideology of apartheid. An ultimatum was given to Malan's government, 'repeal the laws or face our defiance. The leader of the ANC, Doctor James Moroka, framed the ulimatum. It was ignored by a contentious government. |
| 00:08:27 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: In the late 1940s and early 50s, Nelson Mandela, Olivier Tambo and Walter Sisulu dominated the ANC's youth league. |
| 00:08:37 | Archive b/w footage | Don Mattera: The African people protested the introduction of racial laws and the defiance campaign was formed by the leaders of the ANC Youth League |
| 00:08:59 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: The defiance campaign was launched on the principle that had made Mahatma Gandhi's strategy of civil obedience so potent and moral and political persuader. South Africans of all colours broke apartheid laws and offered themsleves up for arrest. The Government responded by enacting draconian law that threatened activists with lashings and long terms of imprisonment. And they broke the back of the defiance campaign. The intricate web of Apartheid legistation survived intact. |
| 00:09:26 | Archive b/w footage | Don Mattera: The country has separate facilities; segregated trains, buses, and even taxis. And separate entrances to shops, post offices. The peoples lives were regulated through the colour of their skin |
| 00:09:53 |
| Narration: The defiance campaign might have failed, but it started a tradition of street protest. |
| 00:10:08 | Archive b/w footage
Crowds, protests, speeches | Narration: And then, in 1955, the congressman would string together Black, Indian and White resistance to form a congress with the people in Kilptown to approved what they called, the Freedom Charter. It was a milestone in the history of resistance to white domination. A watershed convention that no racial character was to inspire and guide a generation to come. 'South Africa', declared the Freedom Charger, 'Belongs to all of it's children, both black and white. Let's therefore advance to claim our freedom'. |
| 00:10:49 |
| Narration: Countrywide arrests followed the Kliptown convention. The state accused 156 people of all races but with common involvement with the resistance and high treason. |
| 00:11:02 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: The government undoubtedly believed that the treason trial would result in whole scale convictions and long prison sentences. As it was, it lasted four exhausting years and robbed the African National Congress of valuable momentum. Though it is true that it gave the leaders involved a continuing opportunity to plan joint future strategy. |
| 00:11:28 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: The court was crowded to capacity when the judgement was finally issued. The judge declared that the state had not that all of the 150 defendants were guilty as charged. They were all therefore, unconditionally released. |
| 00:11:48 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: For Mandela the verdict was welcomed, although ultimately irrelevant. For the crowd outside it was cause for immediate and ecstatic celebration. |
| 00:12:05 | Archive b/w footage
Segregated community | Narration: And yet still, the Apartheid signs stayed to remind leaders and followers alike that a legal tussle won was just the beginning of a far tougher struggle. |
| 00:12:16 |
| Narration: The Apartheid's next target was the women who, until now, had been exempt from the system of Parsons that governed their men folks every move. |
| 00:12:25 | Archive b/w footage | Don Mattera: The implementation for pass laws for the African men led to tremendous upheaval; but, when these pass laws were enforced on African women, a mobilisation of women, from the cities to the rural areas, took place on a very large scale which led to the march on the Union buildings by more than 20,000 women to protest the implementation and enforcement of the pass laws. |
| 00:13:01 |
| Narration: At the Union buildings administrative seat of government of Pretoria, the women handed the petition protesting the passed laws to a startled representative of the prime minister. And then they waited... |
| 00:13:28 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: When the government failed to respond to their demands, women in their hundreds and then their thousands took to the streets. President of the African National Congress, Albert Luthuli said, 'When the women begin to take an active part in the struggle as they are doing now, no power on Earth can stop us from achieving freedom in our lifetime'. |
| 00:13:51 | Archive b/w footage
Black South Africans on the street. Processions Protests Wedding | Narration: A keystone in the edifice of the party was the Group Areas Act, which proclaimed certain areas with exclusive occupation of Whites, others with Indians, others with the so called Coloured or mixed race population and yet others were Blacks. Areas occupied by the wrong race group were to be cleared of their illegal occupants. Sophiatown was a largely Black township that nestled among the White suburbs of western Johannesburg. It was marked out for removal. |
| 00:14:40 |
| Don Mattera: In many ways, Sophiatown was a successful integrated community that could have been a model for the South African society as a whole. It's truly cosmopolitan character freed it from racial tension; but they had to destroy it. |
| 00:15:00 | Archive b/w footage | Narrator: Naturally, the residents the residents of Sophiatown objected to the destruction to their home. The ANC and Dr Ernest Huddleston, a legendary anti-apartheid activist, fought against the removal, but in vain. In the end, 80 lorries and 2000 policemen moved in to evict the people from homes that they had occupied for two or three generations. |
| 00:15:30 | Archive b/w footage | Narrator: The new homes that awaited them were the matchboxes of Meadowlands. This policy of residential apartheid was largely the brainchild of this man, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd said, 'all natives must be placed in separate residential areas and the concentration of our urban areas must be counteracted. |
| 00:15:52 | Archive b/w footage Black South African women protesting with sticks. Police intervention. | Narrator: Verwoerd also attempted to establish government beer halls, the revenues from which would help pay for his mad dream of total separation. He made it illegal for black women to brew beer in the traditional way. The women retaliated in a series of violent attacks on the official beer halls and on the men that patronised them. And here again, the police prevailed. |
| 00:16:22 | Archive b/w footage - ANC – Military procession - Lutuli | Narrator: By the late 50s, and under the influence of Mandela and Tambo, the ANC had become more militant and had attracted of 100,000 members. In 1958, ANC President Lutuli was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and went to Oslo to accept the award. This international recognition of his role contrasted starkly with the way in which the South African government treated him. In 1960, he was banished to his home in Natal, banned from receiving visitors and forbidden to make statements. |
| 00:16:56 | Archive b/w footage - Protest, banners, signs 'Freedom in Our Lifetime' - | Narrator: On Monday, March 21st, 1960, people throughout South Africa started burning their passes in front of Police stations and offering themselves up for arrest. The campaign was the work of the ANC's sister organisation, The Pan African Congress, which was an all black splinter group. |
| 00:17:20 | Archive b/w footage | Narrator: At a township called Sharpeville, confusion was followed by a burst of panic stricken shooting. The final toll was 67 dead, many of them shot in the back and 186 wounded. |
| 00:17:39 |
| Narrator: In May, 1961, South African withdrew from the Commonwealth and declared itself a Republic. To protest the fact that, once again, blacks had been excluded from the franchise, Nelson Mandela and others organised a general stay at home. |
| 00:17:56 |
| Nelson Mandela: There are many people who feel that the reaction of the government to our stay at home, ordering a general mobilisation, arming the white community, arresting tens of thousands of Africans. The show of force throughout the country, not withstanding our clear declaration that this campaign is being run on peaceful and none violent lines. Close the chapter as far of our methods of political struggle are concerned. There are many people who feel, that is useless and futile for us to keep talking peace and none violence against a government whose reply is only savage attacks on an unarmed defenceless people. And I think the time has come for us to consider in the light of our experiences in this stay at home whether the methods that we have applied so far are adequate. |
| 00:18:53 |
| Winnie Mandela: Then the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) was formed on 16th December 1960, in response to the violence of the state. |
| 00:19:08 | Archive b/w footage | Narrator: After 48years of peaceful protest this was the ANC's declaration of war. And yet the war began hesitantly, with the destruction of a few pylons. |
| 00:19:18 | Archive b/w footage
Mandela being taken to prision. | Narrator: In 1962, Nelson Mandela was arrested after spending months on the run. He was charged with leaving South Africa without the passport that the government had already withdrawn from him. He was found guilty. |
| 00:19:35 | Archive footage – Nelson Mandela
| Narrator: This was the last film shot of Mandela before he was sentenced to prison. |
| 00:19:42 |
| Winne Mandela: He was sentenced to five years and once he was serving on Robben Island, as the first prisoner on Robben Island, he was brought back to face the charges that ultimately led to the Rivona trial. |
| 00:20:00 |
| Narrator: Mandela and seven others, including Sisulu, Mbeki, Kathrada and Goldberg got life imprisonment; they were taken to Robben Island. In an address from the dock < Mandela said, 'I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony. It is an idea that I want to live for, but my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.' |
| 00:20:26 | Map of 1960s, Colonial Africa | Narrator: In 1960, the continent to the north of South African was occupied, almost exclusively, by colonial power. And so, when the ANC was banished by South Africa it had nowhere to turn to. But then the winds of change began to sweep down the continent. First the Congo, freed of its Belgian overlords became Zaire, then, colonial Tanganyika became independent Tanzania, which welcomed the ANC exile. In 1964 Northern Rhodesia became Zambia, that kind of freedom lack the very border of South Africa, |
| 00:21:08 | Colour archive footage | Narrator: In 1976, Soweto had a population of over one and a half million. It was city unmarked on most South African maps since official ideology didn’t recognise its permanence. In due course, said the high priests of Apartheid, Soweto would disappear when all its inhabitants returned to the homelands to which their ethnic origins assigned them. |
| 00:21:30 | Colour archive footage | Narrator: And yet it was not the adults, wearily embittered by decades of Apartheid oppression, who were to write the next chapter of the struggle for liberation, but their children. The signs were there for all to see, the school children of Soweto forced to study the curriculum in Afrikaans, which was seen as the language of the oppressor, gave warning that the were no prepared to do so. On June 6th 1976 the Soweto uprising began. |
| 00:22:04 | Archive b/w footage | Witness account 1: “It was like shooting buck running wild” |
| 00:22:09 | Archive b/w footage
Protests, children, guns, mortalities, victims | Narrator: Students marched simultaneously out of five schools in Soweto, they intended to protest against the Afrikaans curriculum. A mass meeting was held at a town football stadium. Then the police open fired. 11 year old, Hector Pieterson was one of first to die. |
| 00:22:26 | Archive b/w footage | Witness account 2: So they remained to fight with the policemen, throwing stones, whilst the policemen were shooting at them. He was 11 years old, he was shot through the mouth. |
| 00:22:46
| Archive b/w footage | Witness account 3: We were all coughing and it was drawing in tears from our eyes. |
| 00:22:49
| Archive b/w footage | Witness account 4: We were avenging our brothers who were shot dead, and those who were injured. So we decided to destroy every building that belonged to the government, and the government cars. |
| 00:23:03 | Archive b/w footage | Narration: Cars entering Soweto were stopped at student roadblocks and the drivers were forced to clench their fists in a Black power salute before proceeding. Two white municipal officials were murdered. The black victims of the uprising are numbered in their hundreds. |
| 00:23:20 | Archive b/w footage | Witness account 5: Corpses were taken away. They were thrown in like a bag potatoes into a vat. It shows how life has become cheap in our country. Especially when you are black, you're nothing. |
| 00:23:37 | Archive b/w footage | Witness account 6: We noticed this green car. Two white policemen were moving around in it. And they were just shooting; wherever it went past, people were left for dead. |
| 00:24:00 | Archive b/w footage Archive colour footage | Narration: The rebellion simmered on as students protested the killing of fellow students. Schools stayed empty, but against the children there stood an implacable government, headed by an implacable Prime Minister. |
| 00:24:15 | John B Vorster – SA Prime Minister | John B Vorster: I want to issue a warning that this kind of behaviour should immediately be stopped. This government will not be intimidated. And sanctions have been given to maintain order at all costs |
| 00:24:32 | Archive colour footage | Narration: In an attempt to put a lid on the protests, the government produced a range of restrictive measures. Gatherings of all sorts were prohibited, except for church meetings and funerals. Funerals therefore developed into political events, Steve Biko’s funeral was one of the largest. |
| 00:24:00 | Map of Africa and colonial change 1964, 1966, 1968, 1975, 1980 | Narration: In 1964 the ANC moved their headquarters to Lusaka. Then independence formed Swaziland, Lesotho, and Botswana on South Africa’s immediate borders and the ANC established itself in each of these countries. Portugal abandoned its colonial intentions and walked out of Angola and Mozambique. Not sooner had it slammed the door, the ANC knocked and were invited in. Then finally the imperial sun set in Southern Africa when in 1980, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. |
| 00:25:37 | Archive colour footage - South African army - Black townships - Gas attacks | Narration: In 1983 the government of P.W. Botha introduced a new constitution that gave a limited voice to Indian and coloured South Africans but excluded the blacks completely. It was a replay on 1910 and its effects were predictable. |
| 00:26:00 | Archive colour footage
| In township after township across the country a wave of protest was unleashed. The ANC set out deliberated to make Black South African ungovernable. The State met violence with violence, declared a state of emergency and sent police, backed by army troops into occupied townships. |
| 00:26:31 |
| Narration: Some troops staged an extraordinary public relations exercise and offered children rides in the armoured vehicles. Despite it’s reforms (the pass laws for instance were scrapped) the Government of P.W. Botha seemed set on maintaining white supremacy at all costs. |
| 00:26:57 |
| Narration: In 1983 the United Democratic Front, the UDF, was formed when over 600 anti-apartheid organisations joined forces. |
| 00:27:04 | United Democratic Front speech/ Rally | UDF representative: We have waited for many years, we have pleaded, we have cried, we petitioned for so long. Now, we have been jailed and exiled and killed for so long now, but are saying today that now is the time. |
| 00:27:22 |
| Narration: The formation of the UDF was clearly the most pointed challenge to the Government since the 1976 revolt. For the first time the black resistance within South Africa spoke with a single powerful voice. |
| 00:27:53 | Archive colour footage Riots Police intervention | Narration: The government responded by tightening the screws. Police monitored funeral meetings, and then banned them. Clouds of tear gas drifted through the townships on a daily basis. Protected from public scrutiny by the clauses of the emergency regulations, the police were free to impose law and order by any means they saw fit. Against this backdrop, the ANC decided to intensify the armed struggle. |
| 00:28:36 | Footage of Church Street bombing | Narration: Umkhonto we Sizwe exploded a massive bomb outside a military complex in the heart of Pretoria. Bombs are indiscriminate; they kill and maim whoever happens to be in their path. Many of the victims of the Pretoria bomb blast were black passers by. 17 people died, scores more were injured. |
| 00:29:05 |
| The ANC claim, the bomb was a blow for freedom. Whether or not the Pretoria bomb had advanced the cause of the vote less, it was no doubt it demonstrated the ANC’s ability to successfully infiltrate South Africa with arms and ammunition. But the material was largely Eastern European and Soviet in origin. Many cases were uncovered and many heavily armed Gorillas arrested. Bombings became a daily occurrence. The public was warned to beware of any suspicious looking object and pictures of a variety of limpet mines were displayed in public placed to aide identification. South Africa, it seemed, was under siege. |
| 00:30:00 |
| Narration: The headlines said it all. No one was safe from the ANC bombs. And meanwhile, the township violence took some ugly twists. Outside Cape Town, a shack settlement called Crossroads witnessed some of the worst internecine violence of the decade, when the conservative black vigilantes challenged the young militants called the comrades. |
| 00:30:24 | Footage of Crossroad riots 1986 | Openly supported by the police, the vigilantes burned down shacks to flush out the comrades. The comrades retaliated in kind, with small arms fire, Molotov cocktails, sticks and stones. | |
| 00:31:29 | Colour Archive footage - Plain clothes policeman - Witdoeke (conservative black vigilantes) | Plain-clothes policemen watch with power and satisfaction as the vigilantes gained the ascendancy. | |
| 00:31:48 | Colour Archive footage
| The cost of peace in Crossroads was very, very high. Throughout the country in an orgy of self-destruction, militants turned on black government officials and suspected informants. They perfected one of the most horrible methods of murder ever devised. It was called the necklace and involved forcing a motorcar tyre over the intended victim, pouring petrol it and lighting it. Death was an agonised convulsion. | |
| 00:32:31 | Colour Archive footage
| But not all protests took such bizarre forms. A march to the prison in which Nelson Mandela had been transferred to from Robben Island demonstrated what discipline the resisters were capable of. They’re demand was simple; release Nelson Mandela. | |
| 00:32:46 | Colour Archive footage
| Archive clip w/ sound/ speech from policeman | |
| 00:33:00 | Archive footage (w/ sound) of protest and police intervention | The police, however, would tolerate no such demands. However peaceful and dignified it was, the march clearly defied the emergency regulations and therefore, had to be stopped. | |
| 00:33:37 | Aerials | Between 1984 and 1989 the rights of ordinary citizens to make their feelings known by making a peaceful protest were denied almost totally. | |
| 00:32:53 | Colour Archive footage -Aerials | Narration: Hoping to establish several fronts simultaneously, the ANC’s armed wing launched assaults against farms in the Northern border of the country. Several farmers and their families were killed. Mines were laid on farm roads; the military were called in to defuse them. Troops descended on the borders in larger numbers, electrified fences were erected in and attempt to keep the guerrillas out. | |
| 00:34:18 | Colour Archive footage
| The occupation of the townships by the South African army continued. Rings of steel surrounded many of the ghettos. All who wished to enter, or leave the townships were required to undergo a stringent inspections and body searches. | |
| 00:34:33 | Colour Archive footage
| Narration: A new system of administration of Black townships was put in place in which the military security establishment played a critical but shadowy role. Realising that it would proved impossible to win the townships by military means, the security establishment launched a programme of aide and development. Supported by propaganda to win the hearts and minds of the black population. | |
| 00:35:01 |
| Millions of dollars were pumped into townships like Alexandra, north of Johannesburg, in the hope the showcase development would work where tear gas and intimidation has so clearly failed. The ANC summarily rejected was what transparently an attempt to buy off the radicals. | |
| 00:35:40 |
| Oliver Tambo: South Africa belongs to all who live in it. It is the brutalisation of black children, is the brutalisation of the future of all South African children. Therefore, we must stand in solidarity with our fellow citizens. | |
| 00:36:18 | Archive colour footage | Narration: And still the bombs went off. In Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg, a bomb exploded outside the magistrates’ court with devastating effect. It was apparently, the work of a white radical, Heinrich Grosskopf, son of one of the country’s leading Afrikaans newspaper editors. | |
| 00:36:35 |
| Bombs at home, and in London and in ANC shop complete with newspapers, books, posters and memorabilia of the struggle. | |
| 00:36:46 | Archive colour footage | One of the major themes within South Africa has been the development of a powerful trade union movement. Banned until 1979, black unions subsequently formed the congress of South African trade unions, Cosatu, which played and important role in the economy and forced the private sector to recognise labour in all negotiations. | |
| 00: 37:07 | Archive colour footage | Narration: Their indispensable role in the country’s economy gave blacks an increasingly potent political weapon, which they began to wield with ever more confident assurance. | |
| 00:37:26 |
| Public speaker: All that we care for is our freedom. All that we care for is our liberation in this land of Africa. | |
| 00:37:39 | Archive colour footage | Narration: Hillbrow is the high-rise residential heart of Johannesburg. Renowned for the frenetic pulse of its nightlife, it is also the most densely populated square kilometre on the continent. Trends begin here, fads become fashions, keep your ear close enough to the ground and you might even hear an echo of South Africa’s socio-political future. 10 years ago Hillbrow was white, then as black South African’s emigrated in greater numbers to the cities, Hillbrow slowly began to change. Rather than let their properties stand vacant as the whites moved out to the more affluent North, Landlords accepted black tenants. By the time the government realised what was happening the process was irreversible. Hillbrow had leapfrogged the apartheid into multiracialism. The government submitted to the inevitable and declared Hillbrow, not black, not white, but grey. | |
| 00:38:46 | Archive colour footage -Govan Mbeki -Press conference | Narration: Govan Mbeki, one of the seven top ANC officials imprisoned with Nelson Mandela in 1964, was released in a deliberate attempt to test the waters of political reform. So ecstatic was the welcome accorded Mbeki, almost immediately restrictions were placed on him. This press conference called on the time of his release was the one of last that he addressed before he was gagged and confined to his hometown. | |
| 00:39:11 | Map of Africa,
| Narration: After Zimbabwe’s independence, the ANC established a presence there temporarily. Continued South African pressure caused Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland to withdraw permission for the ANC to operate within their borders; Angola followed soon after. In 1989, after a bush war lasting twenty years, South West Africa won it’s independence and took the name of Namibia. Will the wheel turn full circle? Is the ANC’s next move a return to the land of it’s origin, to South Africa. | |
| 00:38:46 | Archive colour footage | Narration: The extreme right wing in the form of a Nazi style movement of fanatics tried to oppose the opening of facilities to all races. | |
| 00:40:00 | Archive colour footage
-Peaceful protest in Cape Town | Narration: But the tide, it seemed, had at last turned. Even before he assumed office, the new State President Frederik de Klerk, relaxed the tight controls his predecessor had ordered on peaceful protest. And for the first time in a decade, large protest marches under the eyes of a nervous, yet benevolent police force. | |
| 00:40:26 | Archive colour footage | The first legal march took place in Cape Town. It was led by the white mayor of the city, others swiftly followed in all of South Africa’s major centres and in many smaller towns as well. Remarkably, there was little violence; the mood was one of euphoria. | |
| 00:40:44 |
| Narration: Johannesburg, by government decree was today a mixed city. It’s amenities, its transportation systems, its parks, its swimming pools, its recreational areas, its theatres; these are open to all citizens. At street level at least, Apartheid is dead | |
| 00:41:20 | Archive colour footage | Take a stroll around the weekend market held in the heart of Johannesburg and you’ll wonder whatever became of Apartheid. | |
| 00:42:18 | Archive colour footage | Although the government has liberalised many aspects of life, they have yet to approached the central core of Apartheid, the exclusion of blacks from the machinery of government itself. Democracy is only a promise on the lips of new State President de Klerk. | |
| 00:42:31 |
| Frederik de Klerk: This day in which I assume the highest office in our country. I want to pledge myself. To pledge myself to a quest for peace through fairness and justice. All reasonable people in this country, by far the majority, anxiously await from the leadership of South Africa a message of hope. We shall work urgently on proposals with regard to the handling of discriminatory legislation. A continued removal of discrimination remains and important objective, we will work just as urgently on the formulation of alternative methods of protecting groups and minority rights in a non-discriminatory manner. This includes urgent attention to the place and role of a human rights bill and constitutional efforts to eliminate domination. | |
| 00:43:52 | Archive colour footage | Narration: And then to the astonishment of almost everyone, de Klerk announced the release from prison of eight important political prisoners including; Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada and Andrew Mlangeni and gave permission for their enthusiastic followers to organise a welcome home rally in Johannesburg’s largest soccer stadium. 80,000 people gathered for the occasion, those present will recall this day for the rest of their lives, whatever happens hereafter, today is history and everyone knows it. It is bright with significance. In the nature of things, few who are present here witnessed the new State President’s inauguration. So no one would have noticed the words and sentiments of the ANC leaders and remarkable similar to the words and the sentiments expressed de Klerk. | |
| 00:45:03 |
| Walter Sisulu: Let all of us who love this country engaged in the task of building a new South Africa. | |
| 00:45:46 |
| Ahmed Kathrada: The policy of the ANC has been, still remains, and will always be, open to the struggles for all the people of South Africa across this so-called, racial divide. | |
| 00:46:07 | Archive colour footage | Narration: Apprehensive white South Africans find the close association between the ANC and the South African communist party disturbing. However events in Eastern Europe will force the black movements to rethink their struggle and basic structure. | |
| 00:46:21 |
| Andrew Mlangeni: Here is our message to the government, the ANC says, the people of South Africa want peace, the people of South Africa want freedom. The government has everything in its power to bring and create the necessary climate for such things to come about. We are saying to the Government the ANC is prepared to contribute towards bringing about peace in South Africa. | |
| 00:47:14 | Archive colour footage | Narrator: The ANC is not the only party organisation to play an important role in the future of South Africa. The Pan African Congress and Inkatha each have a strong voice. | |
| 00:47:35 |
| Walter Sisulu: We called on our white brothers, sisters to join us in this struggle for democracy, so that we may shape the future together. Let all of us love this country and engage in the task of building a new South Africa. | |
| 00:28:05 |
| Narration: In 1912 the ANC was established to plead the cause of disenfranchised black South Africans. For nearly fifty years the organisation struggled to do so peacefully, then it resorted to the means of war to press its demands. | |
| 00:48:18 | Archive colour footage
Nelson Mandela’s release from prison | Don Mattera: The on the 11th of February 1990 Nelson Mandela is released from prison. Mandela and his wife, Winnie, waved to ecstatic crowds as they walk hand in hand through the prison gates. The people and the press surge forward for a glimpse of a face the world has been waiting 27 years to see. Thousands of people, black and white line the route to Cape Town. Nelson Mandela speaks at the welcome home rally in Soweto, reassuring South African whites. | |
| 00:48:58 |
| Nelson Mandela: I stated in 1964 that I, and the ANC are as opposed to black domination as we are to white domination. | |
| 00:49:10 | Archive colour footage | Don Mattera: Long live Mandela, viva ANC, the people shout, sing and cheer. People throughout South Africa celebrate Nelson Mandela. Some of the ANC military wings express their enthusiasm by presenting dummy weapons made from wood and scrap metal. Mandela addresses rallies throughout the country and travels to Europe and the United States, whilst de Klerk abolishes a series of Apartheid laws. | |
| 00:49:43 | Archive colour footage | Don Mattera: While celebrations continue the country is racked by violence between Inkatha led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi and the ANC. The violence escalates and thousands are shot, stabbed to death and even necklaced. The ANC, and others, claim that much of the violence is orchestrated by special police units. The burning of homes and slaughter of people spreads to the Transvaal. Funerals become targets for attacks by gangs with AK47 rifles. The confusion if further confounded by the discovery of professional hit squads that use Soviet origin arms, the type previously associated with the ANC. This confusion is an attempt to discredit the ANC and in particular their military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. | |
| 00:51: 06 | Archive colour footage | Don Mattera: On the 29th January 1991 Mandela meets Buthelezi in Durban to try and find ways of stopping the violence. For a moment, there is hope. But the violence continues. Squatter camps are attacked and the police protect them with razor wire. Inkatha vigilante groups from nearby hostels are thought to be responsible. But the ANC claims that these hostels are used as barracks and training sites for forces designed to stabilise the country. | |
| 00:52:09 | Archive colour footage | Don Mattera: The violence moves from township to township, from Alexandra to Soweto, from squatter camp to squatter camp, from the Cape to Natal. And always, the innocent suffer. | |
| 00:52:45 |
| Don Mattera: People are forced to leave their houses as territories are dominated by one group, or the other. Children become orphans, wives become widows. | |
| 00:53:00 | Archive footage | Don Mattera: Zulu speaking gangs attack commuter trains, chopping passengers to death. Fear drives people to jump from speeding trains. | |
| 00:53:15 | Archive footage | Don Mattera: The ANC moves it's headquarters in Johannesburg to a highrise building and some of the ANC leaders, like Nelson Mandela move to the upmarket, white, northen suburbs. The president of the ANC, Oliver Tambo, returns to South Africa. | |
| 00:53:37 |
| Don Mattera: In January 1991, the ANC's 79th anniversary is celebrated at the national conference and Oliver Tambo hands over the presidency of the ANC to Nelson Mandela. | |
| 00:53: |
| Don Mattera: Cyril Ramaphosa is lifted shoulder high by the crowds as they celebrate his election as the General Secretary of the ANC. New faces appear on the platform of the ANC. The National Executive committee declares that 1991 is the year for mass action and the transfer of power to the people. The ANC approaches the future with only two aims in mind. These are the total abolition of the system of Apartheid and the reform and amendment and its replacement by a genuine non-racial democracy. Power must be transferred into the hands of all people, so that they, the people, govern. | |
| 00:55:03 | Archive footage of the CODESA convention | Don Mattera: CODESA, the convention for a democratic South Africa meets for the first time to discuss the future of South Africa. The leading political parties discuss how to create a climate for democracy, constitutional principles, the transition of power, and the bill of rights. Chris Hani of the Communist Party, Dawie de Villiers of the National Party and Nelson Mandela of the ANC signed the peace accord to establish a basis for peace, free political activity and the resolution of conflict and violence. | |
| 00:55:42
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| Frederik de Klerk: My hope and my plea is that this CODESA conference must show to all the people in South Africa that your leaders have started talking to each other and if they talk to each other, there is no need for you to kill each other. Let us stop the violence. | |
| 00:56:06 |
| Don Mattera: So after much bickering and point scoring between the two main players, the African National Congress and the National Party CODESA II breaks down. | |
| 00:56:20 |
| Cyril Ramaphosa: With their own constitutional proposals to have a second chamber of minorities and a second chamber of losers. Now, our proposals and our beliefs of a democratic dispensation are not inline with that. | |
| 00:56:38 |
| Don Mattera: The ANC insists that the Government modifies its minority-orientated proposals and CODESA collapses; a terse and angry Mandela calls for mass action on June 16th. | |
| 00:56:02 |
| Nelson Mandela: We have come out today in order to achieve this objective. | |
| 00:57:05 |
| Narration: After lengthy peace talks, and some setbacks, a new era begins in South Africa with the first democratic elections in 1994. Nelson Mandela is elected President and ANC takes on its new role as the major political party in a Government of national unity. South Africa’s doors are now open to the work and foreign heads of state and royalty, including Queen Elizabeth II, come to pay tribute to its remarkable transformation. South Africa’s peaceful transition to democracy spearheaded by the ANC is one the political landmarks of this century | |