For many people Eugène Terre'Blanche was the rather sinisterly comical but also hateful central figure in Nick Broomfield's twenty-year documentary The Leader, His Driver, and the Driver's Wife.
While I fervently hope that the trial of the two people arrested for his alleged murder brings out the truth of what happened, and that justice prevails, I can't help but recall with a shudder what a horrible organisation the AWB were.
All full of bile, venom, and vanity.
What the bigots of apartheid and separatists of the AWB showed was how wrong they actually were. And how the dignity and the strength of the black, coloured, and Indian majority shone through in the new Rainbow Nation.
There is still a long road to travel for South Africa, but with plenty of hard work and love... truth, justice, and reconciliation will triumph.
Showing posts with label south africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label south africa. Show all posts
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Sharpeville fifty years on
I couldn't really let today pass without a mention of Sharpeville in South Africa.
Half-a-century ago and a world away in apartheid South Africa, every black person had to carry passbooks.
This physical everyday shackle of oppression listed the person's name, birthplace, and "tribal" affiliation, contained their picture and serial number, showed whether they had paid their taxes or been arrested, and unless it was signed monthly by their employer, the African could be herded with the other unemployed into a "native reservation".
All Africans had to carry them about their person at all times, and they could (and were) checked at any time by the notoriously unforgiving police, and heaven help you if you didn't have it or there was something amiss.
You could be hauled off to jail, without a word of warning to your family, and fined or imprisoned.
For more than a century blacks had endured this vile system and then following the Gandhian precepts of non-violent action, a mass campaign of non-compliance was started where people were urged to turn up at police stations without their passbooks and demand to be arrested.
At Sharpeville police station, a determined crowd of more than 20,000 Africans gathered demanding to be arrested. The twenty police officers present barricaded themselves inside and sent for reinforcements, hundreds of whom duly arrived, supported by armoured cars, and aircraft buzzing the crowd to try and scatter it.
When that failed, the police began firing with revolvers, rifles, and Sten guns. In two awful minutes, hundreds of blacks lay dead or wounded, many shot in the back.
It is fair to say that the events of that day hastened South Africa's march to pariah state in the world community shunned by almost everyone. And although there were many setbacks along the way, thirty years later and much bloodshed apartheid was defeated and the struggle for freedom by the black majority achieved.
Maatla ke a rona!
Half-a-century ago and a world away in apartheid South Africa, every black person had to carry passbooks.
This physical everyday shackle of oppression listed the person's name, birthplace, and "tribal" affiliation, contained their picture and serial number, showed whether they had paid their taxes or been arrested, and unless it was signed monthly by their employer, the African could be herded with the other unemployed into a "native reservation".
All Africans had to carry them about their person at all times, and they could (and were) checked at any time by the notoriously unforgiving police, and heaven help you if you didn't have it or there was something amiss.
You could be hauled off to jail, without a word of warning to your family, and fined or imprisoned.
For more than a century blacks had endured this vile system and then following the Gandhian precepts of non-violent action, a mass campaign of non-compliance was started where people were urged to turn up at police stations without their passbooks and demand to be arrested.
At Sharpeville police station, a determined crowd of more than 20,000 Africans gathered demanding to be arrested. The twenty police officers present barricaded themselves inside and sent for reinforcements, hundreds of whom duly arrived, supported by armoured cars, and aircraft buzzing the crowd to try and scatter it.
When that failed, the police began firing with revolvers, rifles, and Sten guns. In two awful minutes, hundreds of blacks lay dead or wounded, many shot in the back.
It is fair to say that the events of that day hastened South Africa's march to pariah state in the world community shunned by almost everyone. And although there were many setbacks along the way, thirty years later and much bloodshed apartheid was defeated and the struggle for freedom by the black majority achieved.
Maatla ke a rona!
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Blowin' in the wind...
It is fifty years now since PM Harold Macmillan, at a speech in Cape Town, said, “The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact”.
This speech at the time, and since, has always been used as an example of the pragmatic attitude of the "modern" Conservative party.
For me however, the key phrase is "Whether we like it or not", of course, we like it!
Amandla!
This speech at the time, and since, has always been used as an example of the pragmatic attitude of the "modern" Conservative party.
For me however, the key phrase is "Whether we like it or not", of course, we like it!
Amandla!
Friday, 8 January 2010
Amandla Ngawethu
One of the reasons I joined the Young Liberals as a teenager in the mid-1970s, was the party's stance on South Africa and the condemnation of that stain upon humanity, apartheid, ironically pronounced "apart-hate" in Afrikaans.
I remember the charismatic leader of the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign, a young man, a Young Liberal, called Peter Hain.
One of the things I learnt about was the African National Congress, its struggle for survival and its resistance to the whites-only regime.
I learnt to admire people like Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Mac Maharaj, Joe Slovo, Ruth First, Bram Fischer, Steve Biko, Trevor Huddleston, Miriam Makeba, Alan Paton, and of course Hector Pieterson whose dying body being carried by a fellow student became the iconic figure of the Soweto Uprising.
Today in 1912, the ANC was founded with a vision of a non-racial South Africa, a vision that took more than eighty years to realise.
One of the reasons the apartheid regime took so long to fall was the succour it received from parties abroad.
One of those was the Conservative Party of Mrs Thatcher, or more correctly the Federation of Conservative Students who used to sport "Hang Mandela" badges.
What a bunch of neanderthal idiots.
Actually I apologise for that last remark. It's an insult to Neanderthals.
So Happy Birthday ANC, and Mayibuye-i Afrika.
I remember the charismatic leader of the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign, a young man, a Young Liberal, called Peter Hain.
One of the things I learnt about was the African National Congress, its struggle for survival and its resistance to the whites-only regime.
I learnt to admire people like Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Mac Maharaj, Joe Slovo, Ruth First, Bram Fischer, Steve Biko, Trevor Huddleston, Miriam Makeba, Alan Paton, and of course Hector Pieterson whose dying body being carried by a fellow student became the iconic figure of the Soweto Uprising.
Today in 1912, the ANC was founded with a vision of a non-racial South Africa, a vision that took more than eighty years to realise.
One of the reasons the apartheid regime took so long to fall was the succour it received from parties abroad.
One of those was the Conservative Party of Mrs Thatcher, or more correctly the Federation of Conservative Students who used to sport "Hang Mandela" badges.
What a bunch of neanderthal idiots.
Actually I apologise for that last remark. It's an insult to Neanderthals.
So Happy Birthday ANC, and Mayibuye-i Afrika.
Saturday, 18 July 2009
Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela!
Today is Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday and also Mandela Day.
Nelson Mandela has fought for social justice for 67 years, and so the campaign is asking people to start with 67 minutes.
Today should bring together people around the world to fight poverty and promote peace and reconciliation.
Well I'll be on a stall in Todmorden doing my bit, not much I know, but every little helps.
Nelson Mandela has fought for social justice for 67 years, and so the campaign is asking people to start with 67 minutes.
Today should bring together people around the world to fight poverty and promote peace and reconciliation.
Well I'll be on a stall in Todmorden doing my bit, not much I know, but every little helps.
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