The Road to Resistance The World Against Apartheid: Have You Heard from Johannesburg?


The Road to Resistance

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I am now in a position to announce that Mr Nelson Mandela

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will be released at the Victor Verster Prison

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on Sunday 11th February, at about 3pm.

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MUSIC: "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika"

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I was just filled with incredulity and excitement,

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and we were running all over. You know, phoning everybody.

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We were phoning... We couldn't reach each other.

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And our leader has come out!

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Or is coming out tomorrow! Hallelujah!

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Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

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Because, really, I think, the release of Mandela

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was the release of all of us South Africans, at last.

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TV: 'And the crowd getting excited...

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'There's Mr Mandela!

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'Nelson Mandela, a free man,

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'taking his first steps into a new South Africa.'

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MUSIC: "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika"

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'Because, you know, it's a turning point. You could cry.'

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You feel your tears.

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And then you know your life has been very useful.

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You have not done it for nothing.

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WILD CHEERING

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It is not the kings and generals that make history...

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..but the masses of the people.

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When Nelson Mandela walked to freedom in 1990,

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he'd been held in prison for 27 years.

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He and his fellow activists had been imprisoned, tortured and exiled

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in their lifelong attempt to free South Africa of its all-white rule.

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It was a struggle that had drawn to its aid

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millions of ordinary citizens,

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from dozens of countries around the world.

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We were very ambitious.

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We wanted to destroy apartheid in every area,

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stop collaboration from the sports boycott...

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..to consumer boycotts...

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..to military sanctions...

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..to economic sanctions.

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And many of these things, of course, we achieved.

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It would take more than 50 years to defeat apartheid,

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but what had started as the lonely struggle for freedom

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by a few individuals had become an unstoppable worldwide movement.

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This is the story of how ordinary citizens around the world

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changed the course of history.

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# Hey, say, what's the word?

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# Tell me, brother, have you heard from Johannesburg?

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# Tell me, what's the word now?

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# Sister, woman, have you heard from Johannesburg? #

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They've got no education, and it'll take them a couple of hundred years.

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They've only just come down from the trees.

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We cannot mix with the lower nations...at the moment,

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unless they are cultivated and educated, and so on.

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Racial segregation had been the norm in South Africa

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since colonial times,

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but apartheid was adopted as national party policy

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following their victory in the 1948 election.

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We all became energised by a guy by the name of Hendrik Verwoerd,

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who devised what he called "separate development".

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It was another, softer name for apartheid.

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This is our country, and there's no doubt about that.

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If, in South Africa,

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the white man allows any form of partnership to develop,

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it will mean the gradual giving away

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of the country he has settled for so many years.

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It doesn't take very long before the black man says, "This is my country."

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We had separate schools,

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we had separate playing fields,

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we had separate graveyards.

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We had a separate everything.

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I remember my mum taking us shopping in the centre of town,

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and you could buy a cool drink or you could buy a sandwich

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from any of the cafes there,

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but you couldn't sit down and eat in their premises.

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You would have to take your cool drink and your sandwich

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and sit on the sidewalk,

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or find a bench somewhere that says "non-whites", and sit on that.

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It wasn't a pleasant way of life at all.

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It was degrading. It was undignified.

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Now in power, the nationalist government

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enacted a series of racial segregation laws

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that set it apart from the rest of the modern world.

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South Africans were divided into four groups -

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white, Asian, coloured and black.

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Every person's race was recorded in the National Register,

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and the Group Areas Act enforced separate residential zones for different races.

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Throughout the country, apartheid was absolute.

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Black people were forcibly relocated to rural homelands,

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desolate, economically unsustainable areas.

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The only source of employment was as guest workers in white cities,

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where they were confined to drab townships and single-sex hostels.

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Their every movement was restricted by the notorious pass laws,

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requiring them to carry a pass book at all times.

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Whites could only marry whites.

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The Immorality Act made sex between different races a crime.

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I'm Jackie Haines, coloured, and a local journalist here.

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Perfectly happy, except that I can't live where I want to,

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I can't work where I want to, I can't go to the school that I want to,

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and I can't marry the girl I want to.

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As South Africa strengthened ties with Western powers

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and became the wealthiest African nation,

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it only increased its oppression of the non-white majority.

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Conditions for blacks deteriorated.

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A new generation of leaders emerged

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and embarked on their long campaign for freedom.

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I'm a man of confidence.

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I've got terrific confidence in doing things.

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Oliver made me feel it more.

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Nelson made me feel it more.

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It was necessary

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to condition people for hard times,

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including death,

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so that nothing came to us as a surprise.

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Sisulu, Mandela and Tambo proposed mass civil disobedience,

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which they'd seen used to stunning effect by South Africa's Indian population.

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The idea of non-violent resistance had been developed by Mahatma Gandhi

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while he was living in South Africa at the beginning of the century.

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The ANC joined with the South African Indian Congress

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in their first combined campaign.

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Coming together with the Gandhis

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showed us that you could very well

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bring the enemy down non violently.

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In 1952, in the largest display of non-violent resistance ever seen in South Africa,

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Chief Albert Luthuli led the ANC's first mass action, the Defiance Campaign,

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alongside their compatriots from the South African Indian Congress.

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There were 21 of us in the first batch of volunteers,

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to the launch of the Defiance Campaign.

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I was one of the 21.

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So we marched - chanting, singing -

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until we reached the railway station,

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where we walked into the Europeans-only sitting accommodation.

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The police, of course, took us all in.

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Now, Boksburg Jail mostly had African prisoners there in the past,

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so there was no way they could segregate us,

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because they didn't have the facilities,

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so we all had to live together, which was very nice.

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For the first time in my life, I could sleep with other nationalities in the same room!

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The Defiance Campaign was not successful in changing the law,

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but it brought together South Africa's non-white population

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in the struggle against apartheid.

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We were strengthened - intellectually and spiritually.

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We were reinforced against the system of oppression.

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The African National Congress, in December,

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decided to call all people in South Africa

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to participate in the Congress of the People,

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to demonstrate that both black and white can live together.

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This culminates in the adoption of the Freedom Charter,

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based largely on the Charter of the United Nations.

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The Freedom Charter called for nothing less than a multiracial democracy

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which would dismantle apartheid.

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This, for the first time,

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lays the foundations for a democratic South Africa.

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But the government would not surrender white supremacy so easily.

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Little did we realise

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that the state was actually plotting a massive case against us.

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It was at about two in the morning when there was a knock at the door.

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They showed me the warrant where it said

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that I was required to face charges of high treason.

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I said, "What?!"

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Ultimately, we were all - all 136 - arrested together.

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Being in jail together.

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When we received the paper the following morning at the Johannesburg Central Prison,

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the banner headline screamed that the sentence for treason was death.

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As protests spread throughout South Africa,

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their plight came to the attention of Canon John Collins.

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I was travelling in the train to the north of England

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and read in the evening paper that all the leadership of the ANC

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had been arrested and were on a charge of such a nature

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that they obviously were asking for the death penalty.

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And so I felt so moved by this that as soon as I had an opportunity

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I sent a telegram.

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And so John said, "We will guarantee to raise a fund

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"to pay all the legal expenses and to look after the wives

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and families of the men on trial."

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This was our first serious intervention in South Africa.

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To my astonishment, it poured in.

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I didn't think it would. I thought I'd have a terrible job to get it. But it poured in.

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I said, "Please, feel free to get the best barristers."

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The treason trial would drag on another four years

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with legal support at every stage from Collins' fund.

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Gradually, defendants were acquitted as the prosecution's evidence

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proved more and more unconvincing.

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They couldn't convict these people

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because there was simply no evidence at all.

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So, in the end they were ALL freed.

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This was our one big success. Every single one was acquitted.

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As, one by one, the ANC leadership walked free,

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the trial had demonstrated the value of outside help.

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They called on the international community

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to support their struggle to overthrow apartheid.

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Just as the world went to war in defence of democracy, they say,

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so the world must come out in defence of democratic values

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in South Africa.

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Not necessarily by harming but by using pressure.

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Do you think Great Britain is doing enough to help find the solution?

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Well, we appreciate what Great Britain is doing but,

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quite frankly, it is not enough.

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The British were deeply...

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instinctively...

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racist, many of them, without realising it.

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They would deny it furiously.

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But they instinctively assumed that Africa would never equal the white,

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intellectually or in any other way.

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More in hope than expectation in 1959,

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Chief Lutuli called on Britain to boycott South African goods.

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He simply said that this boycott idea

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is not one where we're asking you to do a lot.

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All we're saying

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is withdraw your support from apartheid,

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don't buy South African goods.

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One always met the argument that if you boycott goods of South Africa,

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you'll hurt first the poor man in the street,

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which is sheer hypocrisy because they're the ones saying, "Do it.

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"Anything to get this evil off our backs."

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But the boycott started initially by small groups demonstrating outside shops

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soon spread to the continent.

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Everybody was glad for the opportunity to do something,

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even if it was negative - NOT buying South African goods.

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But even that was something.

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We were at the beginning of discovering South Africa,

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discovering its problems.

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Over the following decades, the boycott grew and grew.

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Can you imagine

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generating a movement where, for 35 years,

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people were boycotting South Africa goods?

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In 1959, there were a few hundred people taking part in the boycott.

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By 1988, 29 million.

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One of the significant points of the campaign

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was that British journalists and the public

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were asking WHY boycott South Africa?

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So journalists were sent to South Africa to do reports.

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It just so happens that journalists were present in South Africa in March, 1960.

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That year in the township of Sharpeville,

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South African history would change forever.

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We were supposed, on that day,

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to order our people to leave their passes at home.

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March peacefully but in a very military fashion.

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By now, passes had become the most hated instrument of apartheid.

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All movements of the black man are controlled.

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Failure to obey the pass laws is punishable by fine or imprisonment.

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The white man may not carry his card

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but if the black man does not, he is arrested.

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In direct defiance of these laws,

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thousands of blacks left their passbooks at home

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and presented themselves at police stations to be arrested.

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They were led by a new organisation, the Pan-Africanist Congress.

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People were kept down because they were afraid.

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They were afraid of going to jail.

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We decided that we must break the idea of fear.

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By late morning, 7,000 peaceful unarmed marchers reached the police station in Sharpeville.

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GUNSHOT

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That was a shock.

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They shot so many people. I mean, 69!

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And...they shot their backs.

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Which means they were running away and the police were shooting them.

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That news reverberated throughout the whole world,

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with those horrible pictures of a massacre.

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This photograph in Sharpeville,

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this famous one of victims lying on the ground.

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That was splashed all over the front page.

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And that, I think, was a turning point for many people,

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suddenly realising what was going on in South Africa.

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At last, the world sat up and took notice.

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From the United States to the Vatican,

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across Europe and every other country in Africa,

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the outrages of apartheid could no longer be ignored.

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The United Nations condemned the police action

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and called on South Africa to abandon apartheid.

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The South African Government's response was swift and uncompromising.

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And the very next day, there was a state of emergency declared.

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They were clamping down heavily. We could see it and feel it.

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They had banned and house-arrested hundreds and hundreds of people.

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DOG BARKS AND PEOPLE SCREAM

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One night, I think it was about two o'clock, I heard a knock at the door.

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And there were many of us.

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And the entire leadership of the province

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and the national leadership in the area,

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it ALL went to jail.

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'The strong arm of the South African Government.

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'The police raids and the mass round-ups have been crushingly effective.

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'The anti-passbook campaign has been stifled,

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'the control system is being fully restored.'

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Outwardly, everything is calm again.

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The last remnants of negro resistance are being stamped out or frightened underground.

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The ANC looked for new ways to continue the struggle.

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In order to keep the public outside the country informed,

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it was important that one of us be outside the country

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and we decided on Oliver Tambo doing that.

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He was a diplomat and a courageous man.

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We sent him away precisely because

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we wanted to save him.

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We wanted him to plan the revolution.

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He must continue as he would have done.

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No-one but Oliver would mobilise adequate support for the struggle.

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What we want is that our humanity should be acknowledged

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in South Africa.

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I should feel that I'm a human being in that country.

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And I don't feel so now, at all.

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I feel I'm a stranger, a foreigner and, at best, erm,...

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an animal in South Africa. This is how I feel.

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Now in exile in London, Tambo began the gruelling work

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of building a worldwide anti-apartheid movement.

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He would not return home to South Africa for 30 years.

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I think that the first year

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must have been a horrendous one

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which even I, as living in Britain, I don't think I appreciate it.

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There were no resources at that time.

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Literally, he through himself into this with no funds

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from which to say, "Here's your support."

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There were times when he was without food,

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without the kind of basic needs people had,

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but you could never see it on him.

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He was always impeccably dressed, took great care

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and just carried this enormous amount of dignity

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in terms of the mission and the cause that he had.

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He had no infrastructure to turn to and he had to

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create a mechanism to get all those resources

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and where could OR turn for that help?

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Oliver came to us and said, could we help him

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find offices and set up an organisation, which we did.

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He had immense personal charm. He was a very, very warm human.

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I mean, you just couldn't help loving him.

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He really put the ANC on the international map.

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So, if you really want the architect

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of the South African transition,

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then it's Oliver Tambo.

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With almost no money and no influence at all

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with western governments,

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Tambo looked to the rest of Africa for help.

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He saw the need to begin to mobilise the support in

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a structured way, but that he would not focus exclusively on Britain.

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His view was, to do that work, he needed to get

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to the African continent. To build support within Africa

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to confront the western countries.

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Africa was going through major

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historical changes.

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For centuries, Africa had been ruled by Europeans.

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In 1957, Ghana had thrown off colonial rule.

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We must realise that, from now on, we are no more a colonial

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but a free and independent people.

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CHEERING

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Dozens of African nations followed.

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In 1960, Tambo's first year in exile,

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17 African countries gained their independence.

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It was really a time of great idealism.

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Most of our countries had just come out of

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a long, difficult, independence struggle

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and most of the leaders where, in a sense,

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the fathers of this independence.

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Therefore, when they became head of state,

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they continued to have that kind of idealism.

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Julius Nyerere, the liberation leader of Tanzania,

0:28:150:28:19

welcomed exiles and organisations

0:28:190:28:21

from across the African continent.

0:28:210:28:24

Dar es Salaam soon became the city

0:28:250:28:27

at the centre of Africa's transformation.

0:28:270:28:30

Tambo set up the first ANC office in exile and began networking.

0:28:380:28:43

We met in Dar es Salaam. For one thing,

0:28:450:28:48

we were not strangers to each other

0:28:480:28:51

because we had worked together in the past.

0:28:510:28:53

We left on a mission to seek aid from the African states.

0:28:540:28:59

I'm talking of material aid for the struggle

0:28:590:29:02

and diplomatic support of the African states.

0:29:020:29:06

We didn't meet one person who said, "There's nothing I can do about it."

0:29:060:29:12

All people, solid African people, solid. Solid everywhere, really.

0:29:120:29:17

With the whole continent behind him, Oliver Tambo

0:29:240:29:27

now turned his attention to the British Commonwealth,

0:29:270:29:30

where the former African colonies

0:29:300:29:32

were becoming a force to be reckoned with.

0:29:320:29:34

In London last week, the dozen met -

0:29:340:29:36

several of them wanted by the South African police -

0:29:360:29:39

met in secret to launch a campaign throughout the Commonwealth.

0:29:390:29:43

Their aim, to guarantee the meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers

0:29:430:29:47

will exclude the New Republic Of South Africa

0:29:470:29:50

so long as the policies of apartheid are enforced.

0:29:500:29:53

Our policy is one...

0:29:530:29:56

which is called by an Afrikaans word - apartheid.

0:29:560:29:59

And I'm afraid that has been misunderstood so often.

0:30:000:30:04

It could just as easily, and perhaps much better, be described

0:30:040:30:08

as a policy of good neighbourliness.

0:30:080:30:12

Seven of the Prime Ministers are bitterly opposed to Dr Verwoerd's

0:30:140:30:18

policy of apartheid. After all, six of them have coloured skins themselves

0:30:180:30:22

and in South African, they wouldn't even be allowed

0:30:220:30:25

into the same restaurant as Dr Verwoerd.

0:30:250:30:28

Dr Verwoerd, when he arrived, described apartheid as,

0:30:280:30:31

"a policy of good neighbourliness."

0:30:310:30:33

Is that description acceptable to you?

0:30:330:30:37

I should like to be Dr Verwoerd's neighbour, that's all I can say.

0:30:370:30:42

LAUGHTER

0:30:420:30:43

When Nehru got to London, Tambo and myself, we went to see him.

0:30:430:30:48

That is when I was really impressed by Mr Nehru.

0:30:480:30:53

Yes, and I do see him as a towering figure.

0:30:530:30:57

Very knowledgeable.

0:30:570:30:59

And not as angry as we were.

0:30:590:31:03

We were going haywire and Mr Nehru was very cool, very collected.

0:31:030:31:09

He said, "We are going to fight."

0:31:090:31:11

Down with apartheid!

0:31:110:31:13

But the British Prime Minister, at the time, Harold MacMillan,

0:31:130:31:17

stood in their way.

0:31:170:31:18

The British government was supporting South Africa in the United Nations

0:31:180:31:24

voting against the resolution that condemned

0:31:240:31:27

her policies of apartheid.

0:31:270:31:30

The hypocrisy of Mr MacMillan makes me...

0:31:310:31:36

makes shudders go up my spine.

0:31:360:31:39

Barbara Castle began to work on a very imaginative idea

0:31:400:31:45

that since 72 people killed at Sharpeville,

0:31:450:31:50

a vigil around the building of the Commonwealth conference

0:31:500:31:54

with 72 public personalities standing vigil

0:31:540:31:58

for 72 hours.

0:31:580:32:00

Oh, it took some organising cos we had to make it news worthy.

0:32:000:32:04

So we wrote to Bishops and famous actors and writers,

0:32:040:32:09

MPs, journalists, and asked them if they'd give us two hours

0:32:090:32:15

standing day and night outside Lancaster House.

0:32:150:32:20

I remember to morning of the opening of the conference,

0:32:200:32:24

standing there absolutely silent

0:32:240:32:28

while the cars, the big limousines drove by

0:32:280:32:32

and they all stared at us out of the window.

0:32:320:32:35

And I believe we did give backbone to that conference.

0:32:350:32:41

But before the conference had a chance to vote South Africa out,

0:32:450:32:49

MacMillan and Verwoerd had a quiet conversation.

0:32:490:32:53

South Africa voluntarily withdrew, saving Britain

0:32:530:32:57

from a major confrontation with other members of the Commonwealth.

0:32:570:33:00

What we were trying to do, was to make the nationalists

0:33:030:33:07

in South Africa feel as though they were isolated by world opinion.

0:33:070:33:11

But Harold MacMillan was frightened of the big British

0:33:110:33:15

industrial and financial interests and investments in South Africa

0:33:150:33:19

and he muddied the waters.

0:33:190:33:22

MacMillan's curious behaviour enabled Verwoerd

0:33:220:33:26

to go back and tell his people,

0:33:260:33:28

"don't worry, we've still got friends in Britain."

0:33:280:33:31

That really was a tragedy because

0:33:390:33:42

apartheid was hostile to every western value.

0:33:420:33:50

It was the absence of democracy,

0:33:500:33:54

it was a police state and tyranny,

0:33:540:33:56

it was racism in its most blatant form...

0:33:560:34:00

and, yet, the west aligned itself with South Africa

0:34:030:34:07

by refusing to condemn it.

0:34:070:34:12

It took a long time for the world, especially the western world

0:34:150:34:19

to become sensitive to the problem of racism.

0:34:190:34:23

They had a great deal of trade with South Africa.

0:34:250:34:28

And these economic relations build up their own lobbies.

0:34:290:34:33

There were chambers of commerce and others who were powerful

0:34:330:34:37

and who had access to parliament members, minister and so on.

0:34:370:34:41

It was therefore very important that we break down

0:34:420:34:45

that attitude, that mentality.

0:34:450:34:48

For that reason then, we had to have friends everywhere.

0:34:480:34:53

Where it was difficult to approach a government

0:34:530:34:57

the citizens.

0:34:570:34:58

We, the oppressed, are determined to succeed.

0:35:000:35:04

The forces aligned against us

0:35:050:35:07

are mighty and powerful

0:35:070:35:09

and it is only the spirit of our determination

0:35:090:35:12

supported by the freedom loving people who love democracy

0:35:120:35:16

that we can ultimately succeed.

0:35:160:35:19

But as Tambo set about building western support for

0:35:200:35:23

isolating the apartheid regime, in South Africa

0:35:230:35:26

the ANC decided on a new strategy.

0:35:260:35:30

It is useless and futile

0:35:320:35:35

for us to continue talking peace and non-violence

0:35:350:35:38

against a government whose reply is only savage attacks

0:35:380:35:44

On an unarmed and defenceless people.

0:35:440:35:46

Mandela and the ANC leaders launched their armed struggle

0:35:490:35:52

by bombing power lines outside Johannesburg.

0:35:520:35:56

It was a dramatic shift from their principles of peaceful resistance.

0:35:570:36:02

After the banning of the ANC and the PAC, there was also no way

0:36:060:36:10

in which the people of South Africa had any avenue of peaceful protest.

0:36:100:36:15

Mandela slipped out of South Africa

0:36:150:36:18

and flew to London to persuade Tambo to accept the new strategy.

0:36:180:36:22

Oliver Tambo himself was a devout Christian. So was Adelaide.

0:36:230:36:28

So this was going to be a radical shift in their thinking,

0:36:280:36:33

and Oliver said,

0:36:330:36:34

"I don't want to be having to explain this to Adelaide Tambo, my wife.

0:36:340:36:39

"You, Nelson, Mandela, come and explain it.

0:36:390:36:42

"Because you chaps at home have taken a decision that is moving us

0:36:420:36:47

"out of the paradigm in which we've been thinking.

0:36:470:36:50

"And you better come and persuade her so that in my own family

0:36:500:36:55

"I have the space to do what I'm doing

0:36:550:36:58

"and she won't be questioning why I'm doing it."

0:36:580:37:01

Mandela did finally convince the Tambos that armed struggle

0:37:020:37:06

was both essential and unavoidable.

0:37:060:37:09

Now Oliver had to convince the world.

0:37:100:37:14

What we are asking the world to do is not to

0:37:140:37:16

solve our problems for us, but to assist us solve those problems.

0:37:160:37:19

We have tried to ask that that assistance should be given

0:37:190:37:22

in such a way that we can solve the problems peacefully.

0:37:220:37:25

That has not been forthcoming.

0:37:250:37:27

And we are continuing to try

0:37:270:37:29

and solve the problems within methods that are available to us.

0:37:290:37:33

And the stage that has been reached is that the methods

0:37:330:37:36

that are available to us now

0:37:360:37:38

are those which we have tried to resist over a long period of time.

0:37:380:37:41

They are the methods of violence.

0:37:410:37:43

That was very tricky for us, very tricky,

0:37:430:37:47

because John was really a pacifist.

0:37:470:37:50

They never intended to kill people, they would do their best not to,

0:37:510:37:56

but they recognised that there might be casualties.

0:37:560:38:01

And would Defence and Aid still continue to defend them

0:38:010:38:04

and look after their families?

0:38:040:38:06

John felt that whatever people had done,

0:38:120:38:16

they were entitled to as fair a trial as the law would allow,

0:38:160:38:20

and their families shouldn't be allowed to suffer.

0:38:200:38:23

So in the end we said, yes, we would continue.

0:38:230:38:26

The ANC's campaign of sabotage continued.

0:38:310:38:34

But those were amateur efforts.

0:38:340:38:37

They were not powerful enough to affect

0:38:380:38:43

the structures of the Nationalist Party.

0:38:430:38:46

When Mandela returned to South Africa, the police were waiting.

0:38:460:38:52

He was arrested for incitement and illegally leaving the country.

0:38:550:39:01

Before the year was out,

0:39:010:39:02

the entire ANC leadership was under arrest and charged with sabotage.

0:39:020:39:07

Mm, so the game was up.

0:39:090:39:10

I expected we would be hanged.

0:39:150:39:17

There was no question really about their guilt.

0:39:190:39:21

They accepted that they'd taken on sabotage.

0:39:210:39:26

They hadn't done very much, they'd blown up a few things.

0:39:260:39:29

So everybody said, "Yeah, there is no escape.

0:39:290:39:32

"These people ARE going to die."

0:39:340:39:36

That led to the Rivonia Trial which was paid for entirely by us.

0:39:360:39:42

Well, we were horrified, of course.

0:39:470:39:50

And of course, protest meetings were held in Britain.

0:39:500:39:54

We stand here because of the millions of men

0:39:540:39:57

and women in South Africa who are forced to live

0:39:570:40:01

all their lives in the concentration camp of colour.

0:40:010:40:04

And we say that their will to be free is OUR will.

0:40:050:40:09

Their struggle OUR struggle.

0:40:090:40:11

Till their triumph too may be ours.

0:40:110:40:15

The day Nelson gave evidence, it was so terrible to watch.

0:40:190:40:24

The idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons

0:40:260:40:33

live together in harmony and with equal opportunities,

0:40:330:40:38

it is an idea

0:40:380:40:41

for which I hope to live for

0:40:410:40:45

and to see realised.

0:40:450:40:49

But, my Lord, if it needs be,

0:40:490:40:54

it is an idea for which I am prepared to die.

0:40:540:40:59

That made everybody shiver.

0:41:010:41:04

Now I...

0:41:040:41:06

look at the judge

0:41:060:41:09

and I find that the judge is shaking.

0:41:090:41:15

And I say, "Well, the only thing that would make a judge shake

0:41:170:41:24

"is he knows that they are going to be sentenced to death."

0:41:240:41:28

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr U Thant,

0:41:310:41:35

wrote a letter to Verwoerd in South Africa to say that,

0:41:350:41:40

If you in South Africa go ahead and demand the death penalty

0:41:400:41:45

and execute the Rivonia triallists, that is Nelson Mandela

0:41:450:41:49

and the others, then it'll be impossible

0:41:490:41:51

for the international community

0:41:510:41:53

to resist the pressures for economic sanctions.

0:41:530:41:56

The crime of which the accused have been convicted,

0:42:020:42:05

the crime of conspiracy, is in essence one of high treason.

0:42:050:42:09

Giving the matter very serious consideration,

0:42:090:42:11

I have decided not to impose the supreme penalty

0:42:110:42:17

which in a case like this would usually be the proper penalty.

0:42:170:42:20

People were weeping with joy that they had not received

0:42:230:42:27

the death sentence.

0:42:270:42:28

INCOHERENT SHOUTS

0:42:280:42:32

A life sentence for the Rivonia triallists

0:42:320:42:36

was one of the biggest boosts to us in the underground, giving us

0:42:360:42:40

a sense that we could go on fighting and we would win one day.

0:42:400:42:44

As a result of this life sentence on your husband and his friends,

0:42:460:42:50

have you lost hope?

0:42:500:42:52

I shall never lose hope and my people shall never lose hope.

0:42:520:42:56

In fact, we expect that the work will go on.

0:42:560:43:01

Now, nearly all the responsibility of carrying out the ANC's

0:43:030:43:07

worldwide strategy fell to Tambo.

0:43:070:43:10

And none of the European countries, nor the United States,

0:43:100:43:15

provided any support.

0:43:150:43:17

Not only would they not give arms to the liberation movement,

0:43:180:43:22

they would not even tolerate the idea the liberation movement

0:43:220:43:26

had the right to take up arms.

0:43:260:43:29

At the same time, it is a fact also that they are providing arms

0:43:310:43:35

to the apartheid regime.

0:43:350:43:37

The South African military machine was becoming stronger

0:43:390:43:42

and stronger and stronger.

0:43:420:43:43

One other option remained.

0:43:470:43:49

Apartheid was an insult.

0:44:070:44:09

It was intolerable and unacceptable for the Soviet Communists

0:44:090:44:14

who saw it as a manifestation of the class struggle

0:44:140:44:20

and class exploitation, but in an extreme, absolutely intolerable way.

0:44:200:44:27

Oliver arrived in Moscow in April 1963.

0:44:380:44:43

He combined great political maturity

0:44:440:44:49

with an iron will in the pursuit of his political objectives.

0:44:490:44:54

Tambo asked for weapons, military training,

0:44:560:44:59

supplies and support for training bases in Africa.

0:44:590:45:04

Within months, he'd got it all.

0:45:080:45:10

Africa was regarded as one of the areas

0:45:100:45:12

of the National Liberation Zone.

0:45:120:45:15

To use the terminology of those days,

0:45:150:45:17

it was considered to be a part of anti-imperialist struggle.

0:45:170:45:21

All cooperation with the ANC was growing.

0:45:220:45:24

Any success of the liberation movement which would weaken

0:45:260:45:31

the dependence on the Western powers would be helpful to

0:45:310:45:35

the Soviet Union as well.

0:45:350:45:37

But Soviet aid would cost the ANC dear.

0:45:400:45:43

The Americans were that afraid of Communists.

0:45:460:45:49

And they saw a Communist under any bed or in their drawer.

0:45:490:45:52

Everybody whom they couldn't understand was a Communist.

0:45:520:45:55

Mr Tambo, a large number of the members of the ANC

0:45:560:46:00

who are active operationally have been trained in the Soviet Union.

0:46:000:46:04

-Is that true?

-Yes, that is true.

0:46:040:46:07

The question is, what conclusion should we draw from that?

0:46:070:46:11

The only conclusion you can draw is that the Soviet Union has been

0:46:110:46:15

willing to assist us with the kind of assistance we want.

0:46:150:46:18

If the same young men had gone to Canada to learn how to shoot,

0:46:200:46:25

how to handle a weapon, how to fight,

0:46:250:46:29

we would say that Canada is ready to support us to win our independence.

0:46:290:46:33

But the reason we go there is not to ask to be influenced by Canada,

0:46:330:46:39

by the Soviet Union.

0:46:390:46:41

We ask to be assisted with a struggle that we started a long time ago.

0:46:410:46:45

Soviet backing would cost the ANC

0:46:460:46:48

the support of most Western governments.

0:46:480:46:50

Tambo now found himself trapped in the crossfire of the Cold War.

0:46:500:46:55

But some Western leaders remained fiercely independent.

0:47:000:47:04

-REPORTER:

-Olof Palme came to a regional meeting

0:47:040:47:07

of his Social Democratic Party as an international celebrity.

0:47:070:47:11

He was famous for having infuriated Washington by marching

0:47:110:47:15

alongside Hanoi's ambassador in a Stockholm

0:47:150:47:18

demonstration against the United States.

0:47:180:47:20

Palme stood up for his and neutral Sweden's right to criticise

0:47:220:47:26

Washington or any other superpower.

0:47:260:47:29

We protested very strongly

0:47:290:47:32

against the Berlin Wall,

0:47:320:47:34

against the Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia.

0:47:340:47:38

Nobody in the West said that we were neutral then.

0:47:380:47:42

Neutrality doesn't condemn a small country like ours to be quiet.

0:47:420:47:49

I first me him at his home.

0:47:490:47:51

He was having a party for his children.

0:47:510:47:52

I'd gone to see him to get him to arrange an appointment for me

0:47:520:47:58

with the then Prime Minister.

0:47:580:48:01

We became friends from that moment onwards.

0:48:030:48:06

TRUMPET FANFARE

0:48:080:48:09

APPLAUSE

0:48:150:48:17

In 1969, Olaf Palme was elected Prime Minister of Sweden

0:48:170:48:21

and within months, he would provide crucial support to the ANC.

0:48:210:48:26

If people like Olaf Palme

0:48:270:48:30

who helped tremendously

0:48:300:48:33

to make the struggle in South Africa not seen in terms of colour,

0:48:330:48:39

that people understood it's the struggle for dignity, a struggle

0:48:390:48:43

where humanity was involved.

0:48:430:48:45

With Olaf Palme's help, Tambo won the backing of Sweden and other Nordic countries.

0:48:470:48:52

They would give the ANC financial support for the next 25 years.

0:48:520:48:59

Now, Tambo set out to enlist the help of one of the world's most powerful institutions -

0:48:590:49:05

the Christian Church.

0:49:050:49:08

He turned to an old friend, the British priest Father Trevor Huddleston.

0:49:080:49:12

What's the good of preaching a gospel,

0:49:120:49:14

which has no relevance to the living conditions of people?

0:49:140:49:18

That is what politics is.

0:49:180:49:20

Of course we've got to be involved in politics.

0:49:200:49:25

Christ was a highly-political figure.

0:49:250:49:28

Trevor Huddleston had run a mission school for blacks in Johannesburg

0:49:290:49:33

from 1943 for 13 years,

0:49:330:49:34

in defiance of apartheid laws.

0:49:340:49:37

There, Oliver Tambo had worked for him as a teacher.

0:49:390:49:43

We were together at St Peter's.

0:49:430:49:46

We talked to one another as if we were equals.

0:49:460:49:49

But he was white. He was a priest.

0:49:510:49:54

We had not had anything like this.

0:49:540:49:57

# Hallelujah

0:50:010:50:04

# Amen. #

0:50:040:50:09

Now as a boy of about nine,

0:50:090:50:11

when this white man in a flowing cassock and a huge sombrero

0:50:110:50:15

swept past,

0:50:150:50:17

and he doffed his hat to my mother.

0:50:170:50:20

That struck me as incredibly odd.

0:50:200:50:25

A white man, doffing his hat to my mother, who was just a domestic worker,

0:50:250:50:32

uneducated?

0:50:320:50:34

It spoke volumes about this white man.

0:50:340:50:37

I am clear today that the only possible future for this country,

0:50:370:50:42

is the recognition of the fact that white supremacy is finished.

0:50:420:50:48

Father Huddleston's views were in stark contrast

0:50:480:50:51

to many white South African Christians.

0:50:510:50:55

Would you explain to me the scriptural basis for apartheid?

0:50:590:51:03

Deuteronomy 32:8 where God says that he divided the nations.

0:51:030:51:10

THEY SING

0:51:100:51:15

A lot of Christians

0:51:150:51:16

were quite comfortable with the world as it was.

0:51:160:51:20

I suppose you know the old saying,

0:51:200:51:22

when the Europeans arrived in Africa, the Africans had the land and the Europeans had the Bible.

0:51:220:51:29

The Europeans said, "Let us pray." They closed their eyes.

0:51:290:51:33

When they opened their eyes, the Africans had the Bible and the Europeans had the land.

0:51:330:51:37

I believed that apartheid attacked everything Christianity stood for.

0:51:470:51:53

I was greatly influenced, therefore, by what Father Huddleston was doing.

0:51:530:51:59

Forced out of South Africa in 1956, like his friend Oliver Tambo,

0:52:010:52:06

Huddleston would spend the rest of his life fighting apartheid from afar.

0:52:060:52:11

He became involved with us.

0:52:120:52:14

Very powerfully.

0:52:140:52:17

This was a voice that was missing.

0:52:170:52:19

If there were more like him,

0:52:210:52:23

if there were hundreds more like him,

0:52:230:52:26

things would really move.

0:52:260:52:29

In 1969, Huddleston and Tambo took their cause to the World Council of Churches,

0:52:370:52:43

which represented thousands of Christian churches in 80 countries.

0:52:430:52:48

As it happened, the Council was dedicating its international conference that year

0:52:520:52:56

to the issue of racial injustice worldwide.

0:52:560:52:59

Oliver Tambo attended the meeting.

0:53:020:53:05

He was quite clearly

0:53:050:53:07

not the rabid terrorist that everybody tried to paint the ANC.

0:53:070:53:11

He was able to present the whole struggle in such a way

0:53:110:53:15

as apartheid has to be dealt with,

0:53:150:53:17

it has to be stopped.

0:53:170:53:20

I'm not a Christian...

0:53:200:53:22

..in the sense that I can tolerate exploitation and oppression and repression.

0:53:250:53:31

I don't believe in that kind of Christianity at all.

0:53:310:53:36

I believe in a Christianity, which defends justice.

0:53:360:53:40

In a programme to combat racism around the globe,

0:53:430:53:46

the World Council of Churches decided to give money directly

0:53:460:53:49

to local groups, which included armed liberation movements like the ANC.

0:53:490:53:55

Just money, which would be used

0:53:570:54:00

for organisations of black people, anywhere in the world,

0:54:000:54:05

who were trying to set up their own structures,

0:54:050:54:08

make their own voice heard and do their own thing.

0:54:080:54:12

It was explicitly said it should not be used for violent action.

0:54:120:54:16

There was then quite a vigorous debate in the churches.

0:54:160:54:21

If the World Council of Churches had just passed resolutions,

0:54:210:54:25

I don't think much would have changed but because they put their money where their mouth was,

0:54:250:54:29

that made the member churches back in Britain and in the other countries take this seriously.

0:54:290:54:35

People would get up and shout this was money for violence.

0:54:350:54:39

I would say, "We pay to these poor blokes 10,000 for education.

0:54:390:54:44

"When you give the money for education, they will take the money for education and use it for arms."

0:54:440:54:49

It was an incredible show of fear on the part of white people

0:54:490:54:54

who saw that a plural form of society was coming.

0:54:540:54:58

I don't think that any church should support means of violence of the kind

0:54:580:55:04

that some of these organisations, fighting against apartheid,

0:55:040:55:10

are guilty of.

0:55:100:55:12

I don't think the Church should ever be responsible for any bloodshed.

0:55:120:55:17

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Michael Ramsey, said that he did not support the decision

0:55:180:55:23

of the World Council of Churches to give financial aid to terrorists.

0:55:230:55:27

The Church of England cut its grant to the World Council of Churches

0:55:270:55:31

because they had to show their displeasure with what the World Council was doing.

0:55:310:55:35

The controversy spread to churches around the world,

0:55:350:55:38

where the Council found an unlikely ally in South Africa itself.

0:55:380:55:43

We are not a pacifist church.

0:55:430:55:45

We are saying violence may be used by the white people against the black.

0:55:450:55:51

It may not be used by the black people against the white.

0:55:510:55:55

Surely there can be a just resistance to an evil system.

0:55:550:56:01

It's a difficult to equate a middle-aged Anglican clergyman with terrorism,

0:56:040:56:07

yet it is under the all-embracing Terrorism Act,

0:56:070:56:10

the most powerful weapon in of South Africa's security laws, that he was charged.

0:56:100:56:15

He has been accused of being party to the decision by the World Council of Churches

0:56:180:56:22

to send funds to guerrillas.

0:56:220:56:24

Conviction under South Africa's Terrorism Act could mean the death penalty.

0:56:240:56:28

He's been trying to put the Gospel into practice.

0:56:320:56:35

This is extremely difficult.

0:56:350:56:37

I think in South Africa

0:56:370:56:40

you can still say, within reason, what you want.

0:56:400:56:43

But if you try and practise what you say, you're liable to find yourself in trouble.

0:56:430:56:48

What has he done?

0:56:480:56:49

Among other things, he's distributed sums of money

0:56:490:56:54

to people in need,

0:56:540:56:56

to pay for schoolbooks,

0:56:560:56:59

various other things of a charitable nature,

0:56:590:57:02

which, under the Terrorism Act, is an offence.

0:57:020:57:05

Faced with prison or exile,

0:57:180:57:20

Ffrench-Beytagh, like so many before him, reluctantly left South Africa for England.

0:57:200:57:27

The controversy rumbled on but the World Council of Churches stood by its decision.

0:57:330:57:38

That problem Christians have, when a country declares war on another,

0:57:410:57:45

they are not problems.

0:57:450:57:49

-So the just war theory, you subscribe to?

-Absolutely. Absolutely.

0:57:490:57:54

Absolutely.

0:57:540:57:55

It's perfectly just. We are under an obligation to end evil.

0:57:550:58:01

Oliver Tambo remained a terrorist in the eyes of the most powerful leaders in the West,

0:58:040:58:09

the United States and Britain.

0:58:090:58:11

But he now had an army of clergy on his side.

0:58:110:58:15

Over the next decades, church volunteers in their thousands

0:58:190:58:23

poured into the anti-apartheid movement.

0:58:230:58:26

South Africa's long walk to freedom had begun.

0:58:320:58:35

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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