The REAL Story of the Anti-Apartheid Movement ｜ Our History)

South Africa in the 1960s is a country ruled by an unapologetically racist system, one designed to ensure domination by the white minority. Our policy is one which is called by an Afrikaans word apartheid, and I'm afraid that has been misunderstood so often. It could just as easily and perhaps much better be described as a policy of good neighborliness, accepting that there are differences between people. Good neighborliness is not how black South Africans see their historical relationship with whites. White people first came to the southern tip of Africa in 1652 and brutally established control over the people who lived there. By 1948, South Africa was dominated by Afrikaners. White people descended from Dutch settlers. They were the ones who introduced apartheid to make sure power stayed in the hands of whites. All investors overseas will have more faith in South Africa because we will be able to prove to the world that South Africa is the only place in Africa which will be able to remain in the hands of the white man and the rule will be in the hand of the white man. To experience apartheid as a black person is really a kind of, it's a series of humiliations. It's a daily humiliation, being stripped of one's dignity, being stripped of a feeling of humanity. Apartheid is an extreme form of racial discrimination. It controlled where you lived, it controlled who you could marry, it controlled who you could have intimate relations with, controlled which hospital you went to, which school you attended, which cemetery you were buried in. So, you know, there was no aspect of life that was unaffected by apartheid. Whites, by contrast, live a life of privilege. As a young white person growing up under apartheid in South Africa, I obviously experienced all the advantages of being white, material advantages. A significant amount of money was spent on my education, but there was also an element of the surreal about living in a country where people of color from sundown would simply disappear. They were not allowed to be in what was called a white group area. And that I found extremely strange. For black people, being in a white group area without proper papers is a crime. The pass laws, a cornerstone of apartheid, require them to carry special documents whenever they visit these white areas. These laws are despised by black South Africans. By 1960, a number of black organizations have sprung up to resist apartheid. On March 21st, they call one of their largest demonstrations yet in the town of Sharpeville to protest the pass laws. The protest is peaceful, but as more police arrive on the scene, tensions rise until suddenly they boil over. The police opened fire. Subsequent investigations show that the vast majority of people who were shot and killed at Sharpeville were in fact shot in their backs. Sharpeville was a very key moment in the liberation struggle because it really took what was a localized national struggle onto the world stage. Even as the victims of Sharpeville are being buried, the government starts to crack down on the opposition movement. The largest and the best known of the resistance groups is the African National Congress. Its leaders are now forced into hiding, among them a man named Nelson Mandela. A reporter manages to track him down. I asked him what it was that the African really wanted. To further its goal of getting equal rights with whites, the ANC abandons its policy of non-violence. Instead, they launch a campaign of sabotage against the country's infrastructure. But in 1964, Mandela and other ANC leaders are caught and put on trial. They're sentenced to life in prison on the notorious Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town. It effectively decapitates the high command, the leadership of the African National Congress. But overseas, the ANC starts to find allies. This is the era of the civil rights movement. The world is changing and South Africa is being left behind. In London, the international anti-apartheid movement starts to take off. The protests are led by church leaders and a young South African whose parents were among the few white people to actively oppose apartheid, Peter Hayne. I lived as a child in Pretoria, the son of two brave anti-apartheid activists. My childhood was one of being under constant police surveillance, being followed to school as I rode my bike by the special branch, our house being raided in the early hours, my parents being arrested and detained, and eventually they stopped my father working as an architect and we had to leave the country. In 1969, the Springboks, South Africa's world-famous all-white national rugby team, arrive for a tour of Britain. Hayne sees the tour as a perfect target for the anti-apartheid campaign. I know if we can stop their sport, we can really hit them hard. It's in my DNA. I'm a sports-mad, young, white South African by origin, and I know how important it is to white South Africans. We invade pitches. We carry it off the pitch and grab. There are big demonstrations outside, a huge noise. Sometimes some of us are beaten up, but we still keep demonstrating. I think they've been a tremendous success, yes, at every point. The physical effect on the tour has been quite fantastic. It's been the most disastrous tour ever by a team coming to Britain. Hayne and his protests have successfully drawn attention to the evils of apartheid, and not just in Britain. After 1970, South African sports teams find they're no longer welcome in Europe, and that matters to whites back home. Growing up in South Africa in the 1970s, sport in our lives is everything. So when countries, including countries we feel we have some historical affinity with, the United Kingdom, Holland, France, start boycotting sporting events in which we participate, it comes as a huge blow to white South Africa. It's immensely important. Sports gave them the ability to believe that they were the same as the rest of the world. But with the boycott, they had to look and say, nobody wants us, nobody will have us. It started a lot of deep, deep introspection. The pressure has some effect. By the mid-1970s, the South African government is loosening some of apartheid's stricter laws. In many areas over the past year, the strict demarcation line has been rubbed out. Whites and blacks, for example, now find it possible to sit on park benches together. If there is a change of attitude, it is not shared by all those who feel they have most to lose, the whites. This man openly volunteered an interview. Are you honestly sorry that these things, these changes have occurred? No, I'm not sorry. I like to see them come up. But at the same time, can I say that I would rather see it coming up with some education, but they've got no education and it'll take them a couple of hundred years. They've only just come down from the trees. Clearly, attitudes haven't changed. Neither has the economic oppression most black South Africans live under. Soweto is a sprawling black suburb or township just outside Johannesburg, South Africa's largest and wealthiest city. Here, more than a million Africans, forbidden from living in Johannesburg itself, are forced to live in overcrowded slums. In 1976, the government declares schoolchildren must study in Afrikaans, the language of South Africa's white Afrikaner population. Afrikaans is associated with the language of Afrikaner nationalism. It's associated with white domination. So to be instructed in a language that you so closely associate with subjugation and racial oppression and racial humiliation was a step too far for school kids in Soweto. Schoolchildren take to the streets saying, we will not be taught in this way. We're not going to have this anymore. And once again, we see extreme police brutality meeting that peaceful form of protest. Police fire with live ammunition onto a crowd of peaceful protesters. Very young people, you know, schoolchildren, and I'm talking about people who are 13, 14, 15 years old. More than 500 people are killed in the The images of South African policemen firing into a crowd of very young schoolchildren, these images were broadcast across the world. And as far as the international community was concerned, the South African government lost all legitimacy. But most white South Africans remain firmly committed to apartheid. In 1978, they elect a new prime minister, P.W. Bota. Let us go forward together in faith. Bota is every bit as brutal and hardline as his predecessors. And the forces of repression at his disposal are still the most powerful in Southern Africa. After the massacres at Sharpeville and Soweto, the people of South Africa's townships face a dilemma. Do they dare confront the power of the South African state again? In 1981, the Springboks, South Africa's all-white rugby team, show up in New Zealand for a tour. Like in Europe, they're greeted by a wave of anti-apartheid activists. The demonstrators, despite being almost outnumbered by the police, try to remove the obstacles and get onto the tarmac. It's like a civil war. New Zealand is split down the middle. Anti-apartheid activists and their allies on the one hand, and rugby-supporting people on the other. Eventually, we stopped the Springboks. Within South Africa, meanwhile, a powerful new voice is emerging in the anti-apartheid struggle. That of Bishop Desmond Tutu, the dean of Johannesburg. Tutu's position in the clergy protects him from arrest. But he's as passionate in his opposition to the apartheid regime as Nelson Mandela. I think having figures like Tutu for the international community is incredibly important. He is a pacifist. That position gave him a lot of power and credibility as a voice for reconciliation. In the fall of 1984, the anti-apartheid struggle receives a boost. Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The response amongst our people, and we believe that it is saying to us, God is on our side. Even among some white South Africans, Bishop Tutu strikes a chord. We thank God. We thank him for what you have been telling so many of us, the people of our land, both black and white. And I pray, Desmond, I pray that the day may come when even my own people will understand something of the message that you have been trying to tell. But even as Bishop Tutu wins the Peace Prize, and the hearts and minds of some white South Africans, unrest is again exploding in South Africa's townships. In the fall of 1984, demonstrations against rent increases in townships near Johannesburg turned violent. Government offices were burned, liquor stores that were owned and controlled by the government that received tax from them were burned. The police send their Kaspers, their armoured vehicles in. The army's in there. The people are fighting back. There's a sense of a growing, growing conflict. Just like the Sharpeville and Soweto massacres, police have no hesitation in using live ammunition on protesters. But now that brutality only triggers more protests. You know, people go out onto the street. Police fire at protesters. They kill individual people. There is a funeral, and these funerals turn into political rallies, and the funerals themselves become violent. Police kill more people. Yet another funeral, yet another rally. And the violence, in a sense, begets more violence. Soon, that violence is spreading to other areas of the country. This time, Botha's police seem unable to stop it. The ever more violent state clamps down upon the resistance, but they can't do so completely. It keeps breaking out. There's a very real sense that this is a revolutionary moment. It's the moment at which the state really loses control over the African population. In desperation, Botha makes a dramatic offer to the still-imprisoned African National Congress leader, Nelson Mandela. They offer Nelson Mandela and his political prisoner colleagues from the ANC freedom on condition that they renounce violence, and they enter into negotiations on a set of non-negotiables established by the state. On February 10, 1985, Mandela's response is delivered by his 24-year-old daughter, Zinzi, at a huge rally in Soweto. My father says, I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I and you, the people, are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. They refuse to renounce violence so long as the machinery of the apartheid state is practicing violence against the non-white people of South Africa. So in essence, they say, well, if we are going to renounce violence, we want a ceasefire. We want the police and the army out of the township. And that was a non-negotiable for the government. They would not consider that. The ANC decides to double down on its strategy. Through its president in exile, Oliver Tambo, it calls on Black South Africans to plunge the country into chaos. Oliver Tambo uses Radio Freedom, which is the ANC's radio channel, to make this call for South Africa to be made ungovernable. And he directs it specifically to the youth. And young people across South Africa hear that call, embrace it, and really do spread that ungovernability. To break the escalating cycle of violence, the government called in the army. Heavily armed troops were, by the middle of April, a familiar sight in the riot-scarred townships of the Eastern Cape. The Township Rebellion, it's a rebellion of the youth, first and foremost. This is a period of immense exhilaration. I go to university for the first time in 1985. My friends and I were all incredibly excited by this. There's a headiness to this period. There's a headiness to being on the street. There's a headiness to facing a line of policemen. There's a headiness to tear gas. By the summer of 1985, Bota's government has lost control of the townships, but they're determined to bring the people to heel, by any means necessary. On July 20, 1985, South African State President P.W. Bota addresses the nation. These acts of violence and thuggery are mainly directed at the property of persons of law-abiding Black people, and take the form of incitement, intimidation, arson, inhuman forms of assault, and even murder. This state of affairs can no longer be tolerated. He declares a state of emergency, granting broader, harsher powers to the security forces in large areas of the country. I'm not surprised at the government's reaction. This is typical of a government that doesn't know how to deal with dissent. They believe that security and peace and calm will come from the barrel of a gun. Tutu's prediction comes true. The government cracks down. The violence moved from the Black townships to the campus of Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University this afternoon, with police showing little restraint and putting down what had been peaceful protests against the state of emergency. As the townships continue to burn, the presence of foreign news crews means the violence is beamed every night into living rooms around the world. One can't underestimate the power of the media at that time, where on our TV screens we can see day in, day out, the brutality waged against ordinary people in townships. That has a massive impact upon how the world views how things are unfolding there. Botha's government tries to impose more censorship, cracking down on foreign news crews. Here, a police officer can be seen firing directly at a cameraman. Here, another cameraman is shot in the leg. But such brutality only sparks more anger among anti-apartheid campaigners outside of South Africa. Following clashes in London's Trafalgar Square on November 3rd, 1985, American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson addresses a huge crowd. But as protests in South Africa continue, Botha remains defiant. Activists find a new way to protest. They stage boycotts of white-owned businesses. But at funerals and rallies, as the death toll mounts, Bishop Tutu finds it harder and harder to control the fury of the crowds. A man believed to be a police informer was attacked by the crowd, and his car was set alight. He was saved by Bishop Tutu, who bundled him into a vehicle and appealed once more for calm. By the end of 1985, it seems both the government and those rising up against it have reached a bloody impasse. There seems to be no way out. It'll take the international community to break the deadlock, but that will take action by world leaders. And like their white counterparts in South Africa, they'll need a push from their own people. Despite the violent uprisings and growing global outrage against apartheid, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher seem more worried about communists than South Africa's racist regime. The Thatcher and the Reagan governments had a strong interest in maintaining South Africa as not just a white-run state, but also an anti-communist state, as a bulwark against the expansion of socialism in Africa. They were willing to hold their nose and deal with a regime that was committing human rights abuses. Well, let me say we regret it. It's awfully hard when you're not involved in that. Neither will agree to put pressure on BOTA by imposing economic sanctions. I'm against sanctions first because they don't work, second because I do not think it can help any situation to create unemployment in Britain in order to create unemployment in South Africa. No business in South Africa! For the anti-apartheid movement, this refusal to stop investing foreign capital in South Africa is making their challenge more impossible. The bankers were saying, well, we wouldn't like to lose $14 billion, but I'm sorry that they have not made a moral decision. But while their governments refuse to act, protesters in the U.S. and the U.K. make it clear what they want, in the streets and even in the halls of Congress. People are dying in South Africa! Children are in South Africa! When their leaders refuse to take action, activists start encouraging their own economic sanctions. Launching mass boycotts of South African goods and services. We have to stop business as usual in this country. For the first time, people feel that actually they can make a difference through where we shop and how we shop. We see how corporations and commercial enterprises work and know that actually it does make a difference. Anti-apartheid activists are now targeting large companies with South African links. Shell was the focus of this credit card cutting ceremony with the head of the car workers union urging his one million members to boycott the brand. Western banks start recalling loans that have been made to South Africa and the South African economy is a severe setback. You had the anti-apartheid movement in both the U.K. and the U.S. exerting pressure. You had in the U.S. the Congressional Black Caucus exerting that pressure. Finally, the tide begins to turn when President Reagan attempts to veto legislation imposing sanctions he's overruled by his own party in both the Senate and the House. So even his party, people on the relative conservative end of the political spectrum, come around to the idea that this is a moral imperative rather than a political choice. Express the opposition of the United States to the system of apartheid in South Africa. I'm signing today an executive order that will put in place a set of measures designed and aimed against the machinery of apartheid. This support from the people in the U.S. and the U.K. is huge for the movement, especially for those on the front lines battling apartheid inside South Africa, the racist regime pressured from inside and out. The combination of those two things are, in my opinion, the most important factors that lead to the beginning of the end of apartheid in South Africa. But while the people's strategy of making South Africa ungovernable is keeping the pressure on, many young South Africans pay with their lives. Meanwhile, Nelson Mandela has been languishing in a cell on Robben Island for more than 20 years, branded as a terrorist. I will have nothing to do with any organization that practices violence. I've never seen anyone from the ANC or the PLO or the IRA and would not do so. For Mrs. Thatcher, these groups are pitting themselves against established, stable, liberal democracies, and she has tarred them all with the same brush. The irony is, is that one man's terrorist is another one's freedom fighter. Now Mandela is embraced as a hero of the people. The Release Mandela campaign becomes a rallying cry for the international apartheid movement. So Mandela becomes a kind of cause célèbre. It really shifts people away from thinking of him as a terrorist. The push is on to get Nelson Mandela released. Any sensible government would realize South Africa needs Nelson Mandela. International pressure is mashed by fury on the streets in South Africa. But the black majority, seeing no end to apartheid with Bota in power, can only pray something will change. I'm not prepared to lead white South Africans on a road to abdication and suicide. In January of 1989, Bota suffers a serious stroke and is forced to step down. He's replaced by F.W. de Klerk, who seems an unlikely advocate for change. I do swear to be faithful to the Republic of South Africa. De Klerk comes from a tradition and from a family who are hardcore Afrikaner nationalists. But he had this vision that South Africa really would have to adapt or die and make peace with the ANC. State presidency in South Africa. The man who is appointed to that becomes the leader of all South Africa. He starts to reach out to Nelson Mandela in prison and his comrades. This is the time for finding common ground. Mandela himself is getting older. It would be a disaster if he was to die in prison. He really was the best person to start these negotiations. This is the time for peaceful dialogue. The international sanctions and endless mass protests are economically crippling and must end. De Klerk knows one way to do that. On February 11, 1990, he gives the official order and Nelson Mandela is released. There was this absolutely intoxicating atmosphere. We saw Nelson Mandela with his fist in the air. I burst into tears. It was an absolutely overwhelming moment. I think in all my reporting life, probably the most overwhelming moment I've ever actually witnessed. And he's walking to freedom. And we're thinking this is what we fought for and victory is now in sight. The clock could no longer be turned back. The genie couldn't be put back in the bottle. Mandela may be free, but that doesn't mean the white minority government is ready to give up power. There's the impetus of the transition to democracy on the one hand and Mandela leading that. Then on the other hand, there's President De Klerk and the white minority trying to cling on to power. The struggle isn't over, not by a long shot. Until they normalize the political situation, it is going to be difficult for us to stretch our hand of friendship. The African National Congress, no longer outlawed, sits down with De Klerk's national party to see if they can hammer out how to hold elections. We are ready for honorable compromise without surrendering our principles. But the vision of a future without apartheid starts to get blurry. Some black groups, opposed to Mandela and the ANC, threaten the delicate negotiations. Old scores are settled and a struggle for power results. Black leaders like Chief Budulazi and Natal have been cooperating with the apartheid government in exchange for some autonomy. Now he sees his power threatened. I believe that in a society as heterogeneous as our society is in South Africa, I can see no peace unless we actually adopt a federal formula for the whole country. With no federal model on the table, his followers launch violent attacks on ANC supporters. It was a horrific scene. There were bodies everywhere, moaned down at random. Some shot, others hacked to death. And the national party government seems to be quietly encouraging such black-on-black violence, hoping to exploit the divisions for political gain. The Nationalist Party got stirring the pot there and showing that, you know, some of these blacks can't be governed. The one level, you have the negotiation process. But at the same time, you have the state conducting massive secret operations to try and undermine the ANC within townships. They believe they could sow sufficient discord and division within particularly the black African community. When you say black-on-black violence, there's a kind of mystique. I mean, the whites are needed to keep at least a modicum of law and order. Thousands are murdered, and the violence continues unchecked across the country. The massacre of commuters on a train to Soweto in September was the clearest indication yet of extremist involvement in South Africa's township war. In what appears to be a professionally planned attack, the massacre in Soweto kills 26 people and injures more than 100. For many, it's a turning point, including Mandela. Those with him at the negotiations witness his fury. He is looking down at the clerk who is still seated, and he is saying to him, you have betrayed me, you have betrayed us, you have been fueling the black-on-black violence. I do not trust you, and I will not trust you again. I had never seen Mandela angry until that point. And it was a sight to behold. We will not forget what Mr. de Klerk, the National Party, have done to our people. Unrest continues across the country. Without any warning, the Siskiyou Defense Forces opened up with automatic weapons. As we lay huddled on the ground, bullets whistled inches above us. The promise of elections is in the balance when on April 10th, a white racist assassinates the highly regarded ANC leader, Chris Hani, outside his home. Chris died for peace. How shall we convince people about peace? Public anger rips through the country. Many have lost patience with the seemingly endless negotiations. South Africa needs a political solution. Will the country descend into civil war? We're all wondering. Nelson Mandela steps forward, trying to bring the country together. We want you to remember that as members of a government in waiting, you have the responsibility to behave orderly and with dignity. This is where we really see the statesmanship of a man like Mandela, really, and the politician in him, because in a sense, there was no alternative but to push forward. It's the calibre of the man that he realises at times you do have to sit down with those who are perceived to be your enemy and get the job done. The ANC insists that the National Party government set a firm date for free elections to avoid further bloodshed. If the negotiation process does not move forward purposefully and quickly, results in chaos. Finally, the government commits to elections the following year in 1994. Supporters of the ANC celebrate the announcement. But now the white minority launches protests. They're determined to put off an election that they believe will end their way of life. On June 25th, 1993, 2,000 white supremacists demonstrate outside the Kempton Park World Trade Centre near Johannesburg, where negotiations are taking place. Heavily armed men and women who've always refused to accept negotiations, brought their message home the only way they knew how, with force. Some people who I'm speaking to are really scared. The other response was one of real fear and anxiety, that this moment could herald the end of negotiations and the resurgence of the far right wing in South Africa. The AWB, led by Eugene Terblanche, stormed the negotiations chamber. We're not going to accept the negotiations of one man, one vote. At so many levels, it's unclear where the country is going to go. There is still a real fear that our election might be marred by significant levels of violence. South Africa remains on a knife's edge. Will the country be able to pull itself out of chaos to hold its first free election? Throughout the run-up to elections in South Africa, both the National Party and the African National Congress continue to compromise. One of the skills of FW de Klerk was that he's been able to bring his people with him. There's a very hard core of the white population that are not happy about this. But I think the majority of whites may have reservation, but in a sense, trusting the National Party that they know what they're doing. After four years of negotiating and bloodshed, South Africa finally readies itself to hold democratic elections for the first time in its history. There was this mix of euphoria, excitement, and among some whites, trepidation, that there might be total chaos on election day and beyond. I was with my mother who had been deployed to make sure that the ballot boxes were getting to the people because we'd heard reports that they had been hijacked. We were busy running around the East Rand, making sure that people could vote. On April 26th, 1994, huge lines form at the polling stations. For the very first time, all South Africans are voting. The crowds are breathtaking and to everyone's relief, utterly peaceful. Three generations of South Africans have suffered, fought, and died for this moment. Before it's all over, 19 million South Africans, white and black, have cast their votes. In the end, the ANC wins 62% of the vote, allowing it to form a government and set new laws. The evil system of apartheid is utterly dismantled. I cherish the idea of a new South Africa. The National Assembly's first act is to appoint Nelson Mandela as president of this new South Africa. It was a new dawn, in a sense. This was a moment in which we could look forward to not being humiliated. I would no longer be a second-class citizen or third-class citizen. I do hereby serve to be faithful to the Republic of South Africa. So help me God. This was a moment of true democracy. For years, the people have been rising up against their government. Now, they're celebrating it. Tears are streaming. These are moments that are unbelievable, and yet they're happening in front of our eyes. Never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one another. The struggle isn't over. There's a phrase in not just South, but Southern Africa, aluta continua, which means the struggle continues. 25 years since apartheid fell, the shacks still stand. It's how millions of black South Africans live. South Africa is often described as the protest capital of the world. I've never seen a national group of people more than South Africans who are willing to get out and advocate for their rights. And that individual, collective, community work is what led to the end of apartheid, and I think that's what will lead to a better South Africa going forward. They've managed to dismantle political apartheid. The next step is economic apartheid, and from there, social apartheid will follow. Nelson Mandela said, well, we may have won freedom now, but if there is still injustice, I would encourage people to continue to keep fighting on. When I look at the Black Lives protests, I think we are seeing a similar movement where we have people who, for reasons as absurd as their race, have for generations and generations been treated as second-class citizens at every imaginable level. We need to fight against this. This is evil, and we've had enough. Black lives matter. Black lives have always mattered. This, though, may well be the defining movement of Black Lives Matter, and it can only succeed if people do not give up. The anti-apartheid struggle was victorious, so other struggles for human rights can be victorious. Anti-apartheid struggle shows how it is possible to win that battle. Battles are never won by people giving you the victory. Sometimes you have to fight for that victory and take it yourself.