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We're. Following program is need to be the National Educational Television Network. You. The white man is thinking in terms of the kind of
teaching the African the violent communication between two different kind of people. It could have been a communication of cooperation. It could have been a communication of economic development in the interests of both sides. But. Unfortunately both sides think in terms of. Fighting each other thinking the morbid fear the unfortunate complete integration in South Africa is quite out of the question. You couldn't integrate South African politically culturally socially and racially into one. It's quite out of the question. It would lead to chaos destruction lawlessness and all the evils which we know in this world. You know it's a Changing World Series. The National Educational Television network presents
the first of two hour long essays on South Africa. The fruit of the. Body is in that fastens world attention on South Africa today. The widening gulf of fear between a white minority and a black majority. The reputed inhumanity of a white dominated society. The golden prosperity of a modern industrialized nation a booming economy at the tip of an essentially underdeveloped continent. In the first of this two pad South African F.A. we should pursue these questions and seek answers revealing the rhythm and texture of South African life. Next to a remote rural area Chief Albert literally
patriarch of South African nationalism seeks freedom for his people. The Nobel Peace Prize winner. He is the embodiment of African dignity the position of training in South Africa. Where you do have. Whites in control and then using the opposition really to deny African people certain rights certain fundamental human rights that tends to build. Among the African the hope that will not be the case. But as frustration and sadness and hatred I hope not but there will be a tendency in the direction it does not work. Preserve. All the values which we should as human life people try to have shared by people. And so
frustration comes in tension cunt and dignity the dignity of the human being in the process. Most people in South Africa get their ideas about what black people think and feel from their servants or others who work for them in a dependent capacity. You. Know. So. I think that satisfied with little. And we
Europeans we're not satisfied with it. They have that. And that food and clothing. And gas to eat them up to you know. They have very very. I think. If you can measure happiness they had about I'm sure of it. Vast monotonous black ghettos called townships bring all the large cities of South Africa. Although these new townships are depressingly drab in contrast with the attractive European residential district they cannot be called slums. Indeed they are quite an advance from the old shanty towns which they have replaced the 17 million people in South Africa. About one out of four is white. Most of the non-whites are indigenous black Africans.
The government refers to them as Bantu. Other non-whites include people of mixed blood called collards and a small number of Asians. Africans from the rural areas have been flooding into the cities in ever increasing numbers providing a pool of cheap labor. This township is located 15 miles or more from downtown Johannesburg to ensure maximum separation and security for the white population. Frequent petty harassment by the police. Punctuate the rythm of daily living in the name of the party. Africans are subjected to the most humiliating form of segregation. Upright hate which literally means up Mike Ness is the official policy of separate development. Not all Africans in the townships live miserably.
But whatever their physical state means that all urban black Africans stand together as stripped of political and social rights the right to vote to own land to travel freely and even the right to keep one's family together. Anyone can be expelled if the authorities deem his presence undesirable endorsed out as the dreaded phrase. A. This woman's husband is a factory worker. His earnings are above average. But if he should lose his job he and his family could lose their home land to be shipped out of town. In any case they are prohibited by law from ever owning the land they live on. Women who are newly arrived from the country quickly learn city ways from their neighbors.
Many Africans today are completely urbanized married and die in townships. But even those families who have lived in the city for several generations are still treated under the law as migrants. On their wedding day this and some sophisticated young couple I sadly aware of their particularly uncertain future. Was
mourners at a child's funeral are sorrowful they are reminded that the only guarantee of permanent residence in a township comes after death by those who are fortunate enough to be buried there. As minister of information Frank Waring has the duty of explaining and justifying his government's policy of separate development in South Africa. We are determined to develop our country in peace and goodwill with all sections about people. We maintain
that integration in South Africa would set bet back the progress of western civilization and the record shows that the Bantu in South Africa is built to all and any other Bantu in the whole of Africa. We intend accelerating this program so that South Africa will be shown as a leader in the advancement of the Bantu in the whole of Africa. Shops and other businesses in the townships are owned and operated by Africans. Whites are prohibited from doing business there. On the other hand black entrepreneurs are hemmed in by restrictive regulations and most importantly by lack of capital. As a result white businessmen and officials are often bribed or taken in illegally as silent partners.
The goods in this store are beyond the means of a good many Township residents. You have a majority of people living under such systems living and living under. Not a young South African journalist who left his country and came to the United States on an exit permit that is to say on a one way ticket. Then you have. People are living on and on. I find comfortable. And Continental standard Africanus and perhaps even affluent
people. Expensive education or security. Relatively affluent Africans professional and intellectuals as well as businessmen some of them accept and enjoy life as it is. Africans call themselves.
One often hears. People especially the government boasting have the standard of. Living. An African risks his neck in front of a camera by talking frankly and critically to
the outside world about conditions in his country. Kemba speaks for many who have been silenced. We included Mr Demba statement knowing that he is now safely in Swaziland. I can accept that partly because the first principle does not allow a man to have an opportunity to continue to the development of South Africa's pending prepared to throwing everything they've got. In order to leave his country of I have a beautiful country. You'd like to me. And now the United States are from it. But he doesn't know our because Roosevelt the bosses won't give him a chance to see. It's so difficult to communicate through the right thing in a country where we think that we belong together. And we'd like to organize a destiny together. But the right means going to psychological theater organizing life only in these going to
I want cooperation communication between the two sets of people if they're different for whatever reason. I'd like us to live together. What we have had to have been two communities existing more or less on the one side of the community and the community. Or the white community you had until recently. Democracy
really people have been and liberties have been severely limited. The very personal human dignity of a single African is something much less. Taken into account or respected then a white person on the other side. But of course it is not possible to separate the two communities completely. So some of the influence of the democratic institutions which you find on the white side of the color line. It is to have this influence has infiltrated into the African community. On the other side of the island the black side of the. View from the other side of the color line is voiced by Professor Nicholas Olivier
Stellenbosch University in the day to day relations between white and nonwhite far better than is usually. People look at our statute books and I think that because some of them are the scum and therefore in the day to day in law the nonwhite must be bad. Being that there is an immense amount of goodwill of courtesy in the system on the personal level I believe that that will even increase in the future. And with the development of that understanding and obviously with the removal and frustrations. And also development of a sense of security in the wider view
that Relations actually improve and become even better. And then they are. Medical and social services which the whites provide for Africans are poor and inadequate. In contrast with the splendid modern facilities they reserve for themselves it would be difficult to find a white girl on the streets of Johannesburg. I am. I am
I am. I am I am. I am. A black African worker is often paid eight to 12 times less than a white man doing the same work but unskilled jobs of his kind are generally reserved for Africans only. During the day. Africans are welcome to spend their money and work in the central section of the city. But before dark these men must be off the streets and back in their township. The nerve center of South Africa's booming economy is the Johannesburg Stock
Exchange. Here the investor may expect as much as 27 percent return on his money. There is no longer any poor white class in South Africa. As one of the last countries where they get rich quick dream can still be realized. Businessmen have made fortunes in a few years which elsewhere would have taken decades to amass. The African equivalent. Can be anything from a simple family cookout to.
Every people. Frankly I have no need for living is not a privilege but a right. When I want to
do you much more on that. Like this can we. What about the natives. I think that doing more bitterly than many people in the West we are treating them very well. Do they stand. Descendants of early Dutch settlers have a rational and convincing spokesman Scott
assistant editor of the newspaper. We have three centuries ago more than three centuries ago that were more or less the same time that the modern Americans arrived in America. Nobody had any difficulty in identifying the nation with two in that it seems to have a great difficulty in granting the same right and I think the problem probably is that we have on a black continent we have not black we whites have been a black people there would have been no trouble the world would have granted us staying the way we are enjoying the rights that all other nations. If only the world would concede at this point that we are nations. And that we do have. The into deadlock would be
solved. Novelist Alan people head of the one man one vote Liberal Party disagrees passionately with Afrikaner nationalist reasoning well if he does not underestimate its force people in mentioning the problems are so they're going to be some are going to taking for granted them into account I don't think they understand what they're talking about. Well you asked me what I mean. People came from Europe. They came to a country which offered them their freedom which is quite unknown to them was further and further north until white people were and then Chilean come on and the whole country have to pay up to the pope and wish you know way in our thoughts now and in the way that it is when the myth of black man especially because the black man was a manically opinion that anything now.
But when the men pick up the car I was determined to ensure his own survival and his own to kill it. In recent years it ceased to be purely American educated enough to conduct safety. Now become like Whitey. That is the reason why so many English speaking people. Even if they don't support the nation as party. Support in general the policy of separate development. If you want green with the end and if you think that someone else can achieve the end then you tend to become less critical of the methods and that's exactly what happened to. You. Most white people are unwilling to disturb their very comfortable way of life by taking the risk of speaking out. Although they may be fully conscious of the
injustice around them. The voices of liberal minded whites carry almost no weight in opposition to the white consensus of convenience. Women's protest organisations such as the black sash are tolerated by the government as homeless pinpricks but dedicated members like Norris Hill are relentless in their criticism. Will I feel that really the issue in South Africa is essentially a moral issue. You know it's very difficult to get people to face up to moral issues. And really our herd attitude toward African people in this country or people of color is basically I think a moderate issue. We want to use them. We have an economy which depends on them. And yet we don't want to treat them like human beings and give them those basic things in a society which make for happiness. Which they make for
prosperity. We all know under other circumstances that if people live in slums and people don't have rights if they don't have a good family life a closely related family or able to live together that you get crime you get problems or crime. But somehow in South Africa we don't seem to realize that. And African people who live in urban areas live unnatural lives. People don't think of the problems of their servant for example who can't live with her husband because she's working for you in a house the husband or somebody else she can't live with him. The children are scattered. People don't think of this in terms of it happened to me. How would I feel about it. And they tend to think of them as something different just a group of people and this is something. Because many white South Africans realize this now.
And just live your comfortable life comfortable. Africa. More comfortable than. The first European settlers. The majority of the population in the Cape province are classified by the government as colored. They are people of mixed descent principally African European and Malay. A century ago they enjoyed many political and social rights including broad voting powers.
Today the official status of the coloreds is only a little above that of the black Africans. Cape Town is the legislative capital of the country and a world renowned resort where white South Africans and Doris gather at the seaside to worship the sun and the human body. A.
Series
Changing World
Episode Number
7
Episode
South African Essay, Part 1: Fruit of Fear. Reel 1
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
National Educational Television and Radio Center
National Educational Television and Radio Center
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-51vdnrj3
NOLA Code
CGGW
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Description
Episode Description
The first of the two hour-long programs in 'South African Essay' reports on the situation in South Africa today- the dual standards of living, from the affluent world of the whites ... to the ghettos where the majority lives a segregated life."--1965 Peabody Digest. This program describes relations between blacks, Afrikaaners and other whites, and those of mixed race in South Africa. It includes interviews with blacks, with liberal whites who oppose apartheid, and with white government and business leaders who support the status quo. Footage of blacks and whites together depicts servant-master or worker-employee relations. It also includes footage of whites at parties, at the beach, and in the stock exchange; footage of blacks at a wedding, a funeral, at parties, at the beach, in cities, and in the segregated townships where they live. Also includes footage of blacks singing as they move in unison to repair city streets; at a riverside baptism; and being strip-searched, fingerprinted and tested for suitability for mine work and working in diamond and gold mines. South Africa today is a nation caught in the undercurrent of a smoldering segregational conflict called Apartheid - the political, social, and economic doctrine of separation of the races. Apartheid is forced on a black majority by a white minority which is outnumbered four to one. The first of the two programs in South African Essay reports on the situation in South African today: the dual standards of living, from the affluent world of the whites where lavish living is accepts as a right and not a privilege, to the ghettos where the black majority lives a segregated life. The contrast of life in South Africa is documented as cameras go to the Cape Town resort and the Johannesburg stock exchange, and to a black ghetto where health standards are poor and concrete bunk houses where black miners are forced to live away from their families. In a series of interviews, the program captures the conflict facing South Africa: Noble Peace Prize winner Chief Albert Luthuli, the patriarch of South African nationalists, who is forced to live in a remote rural area, discusses the frustrations of the black people and the tendency towards hatred of the whites because of what he calls the denial of certain fundamental rights. Frank Waring, the government's Minister of Information, attempts to explain and justify the policy of separate development for the two races. He contends the "Bantu," as the white population refers to the natives, is better off in South Africa than in other African countries. Nat Nakasa, a journalist and South African who was forced to leave his country, says the black people are being forced to feel inferior to the whites. Another exiled leader, Can Themba, says conditions have caused two communities to grow up in South Africa - a white democratic community and a non-white community he says is fascist-ruled. Professor Nicholas Olivier of Stellenbosch University and Scott Pienaar, assistant editor of the newspaper Die Burger, contend relationships between whites and non-whites are far better than presumed and that the rest of the world refuses to accept the colonization of Africa as a reality. Award-winning novelist Alan Paton, head of the liberal party, disagrees with the Apartheid doctrine of the Afrikaner but admits there is much reluctant support of the policy of separate development of the two races. Another liberal, Doris Hill, a member of the women's protest organization called Black Sash, says South African segregation is a moral issue being overlooked because of white economic dependence on the black labor force. The Rt. Rev. Joost de Blank, formerly of South Africa, says the Dutch Reformed Church believes in the Apartheid and preaches that non-whites must be evangelized and born again to know their place in society as natives or colored. This religious domination, the program points out, has caused sub-Christian sects to spring up in South Africa, and one of these, the Church of Zion, preaches freedom from white paternalism. The program also explores South Africa's agricultural and industrial development. Harold Fridjohn, editor of the Rand Daily Mail, reports that the white man's contributions to the nation have been a secondary cause of the country's economic advances. He points out the primary contribution to South African development is diamond and gold mining. Fridjohn says many business people think that the nations' surging economy will make social and political integration inevitable. But Morley Nkosi, a former representative of the outlawed Pan Africanist Congress who is now in the United States, says it's deceptive to believe that South Africa's economic boom is going to solve the country's problems. South African Essay is a 1965 National Educational Television production produced for NET by WGBH, Boston's educational station. This program was originally shot on film. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Series Description
To give American television viewers a clearer understanding of how the rapid and radical changes now underway in other lands will influence their own lives, National Educational Television launched an incisive bi-monthly series of one-hour documentaries filmed around the globe. Entitled "Changing World," the series premiered in October 1964 on NET's nationwide network of 82 affiliated non-commercial stations. "We believe the scope and design of this series should place it among the season's most important ventures in public affairs television," said William Kobin, director of public affairs programs at NET. "Changing World" will look at the peaceful and not so peaceful revolutions of the mid-twentieth century from the vantage point of the people most deeply and painfully involved in transition. In a systematic way, it will attempt to relate the problems of the various nations and continents to one another, and to the lives of all of us in the United States. "In 'Changing World,'"says Mr. Kobin, "NET has deliberately turned away form a shotgun approach where we would examine only headline-making events. Instead, our producers and their units will be developing, in each instance an organized approach which will afford not only a solid introduction to other peoples and their problems, but a reliable basis on which viewers can judge United States policy, involvement and goals on other continents." (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Broadcast Date
1965-06-23
Asset type
Episode
Genres
Documentary
Topics
Economics
Social Issues
Global Affairs
Race and Ethnicity
Public Affairs
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:33:09
Embed Code
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Credits
Associate Producer: Chutter, Cynthia
Associate Producer: Bywaters, Thomas
Associate Producer: Jeffries, Peter
Associate Producer: Jeffries, Peter
Associate Producer: Chutter, Cynthia
Associate Producer: Bywaters, Thomas
Camera Operator: Filgate, Terence
Camera Operator: Filgate, Terence
Director: Macartney-Filgate, Terence
Director: Macartney-Filgate, Terence
Editor: Bywaters, Tom
Editor: Bywaters, Tom
Interviewee: Paton, Alan
Interviewee: Luthuli, Albert
Interviewee: Pienarr, Scott
Interviewee: Olivier, Nicholas
Interviewee: Hill, Doris
Interviewee: Themba, Can
Interviewee: de Blank, Joost
Interviewee: Waring, Frank
Interviewee: Nkosi, Morley
Interviewee: Nakasa, Nat
Interviewee: Luthuli, Albert
Interviewee: Waring, Frank
Interviewee: Paton, Alan
Interviewee: Nakasa, Nat
Producer: Morgenthau, Henry, 1917-
Producer: Morgenthau, Henry, 1917-
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
Producing Organization: National Educational Television and Radio Center
Producing Organization: National Educational Television and Radio Center
Reporter: Fridjohn, Harold
Writer: Morgenthau, Henry, 1917-
Writer: Morgenthau, Henry, 1917-
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: 0000059798 (WGBH Barcode)
Format: Digital Betacam
Generation: Master
Duration: 00:33:53
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2416810-1 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 16mm film
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: B&W
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Identifier: [request film based on title] (Indiana University)
Format: 16mm film
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “Changing World; 7; South African Essay, Part 1: Fruit of Fear. Reel 1,” 1965-06-23, WGBH, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-51vdnrj3.
MLA: “Changing World; 7; South African Essay, Part 1: Fruit of Fear. Reel 1.” 1965-06-23. WGBH, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-51vdnrj3>.
APA: Changing World; 7; South African Essay, Part 1: Fruit of Fear. Reel 1. Boston, MA: WGBH, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-51vdnrj3