South Africa: The White Laager

<v Narrator>These people are Afrikaners white South Africans of mixed Dutch, German and French <v Narrator>descent. They've been called a lost white tribe of Africa. <v Narrator>Their peculiar genius has been survival. <v Narrator>Against all odds, they have clung doggedly to the portion of Africa they claim as their <v Narrator>own. Afrikaners will tell you that unlike English speaking South Africans, <v Narrator>they have nowhere else to go. Their home and their destiny lie in South Africa. <v Prof. Gert Olivier>We do not want to run any unnecessary risks. <v Prof. Gert Olivier>We as Afrikaners. <v Prof. Gert Olivier>As the most important decision makers must create <v Prof. Gert Olivier>the necessary safeguards that the society as it is <v Prof. Gert Olivier>must be continued. That of existence as whites in <v Prof. Gert Olivier>Africa must be permanent. <v Narrator>Afrikaners say they are tough and pragmatic, but they may in fact be the last romantics.

<v Crowd>[enthused shouts]. <v Narrator>To understand the present South-African situation, partic- white intransigents, <v Narrator>it is necessary to know how the Afrikaner character developed and how those people came <v Narrator>to power. <v Crowd>[cheers and shouts]. <v Narrator>The Voortrekker monument outside South Africa's capital, Pretoria, is a shrine to <v Narrator>Afrikaner nationalism. The Afrikaner's highly emotional sense of being a unique <v Narrator>people. The folk with a special destiny in Africa, Afrikaners

<v Narrator>have a peculiar mythology derived from their uncompromising religious and racial beliefs <v Narrator>and the pioneering history. <v Narrator>For them, the past lives on and dictates the decisions of the present. <v Narrator>The Voortrekker monument is enclosed in a circle of covered wagons known as a Laager. <v Narrator>For Afrikaners, the central image in their historical memory is <v Narrator>this Laager, an armed camp surrounded by enemies with guns poking out from <v Narrator>behind the covered wagons. <v Narrator>In the three centuries that the Afrikaner has been in Africa, this image of the Laager <v Narrator>has changed. But it is still alive, for the Laager is, above all, a state <v Narrator>of mind which sees enemies everywhere and tries to protect against them. <v Prof. Gert Olivier>Numerically, of course, the Afrikaner constitutes a very small group. <v Prof. Gert Olivier>And secondly, we feel as a group <v Prof. Gert Olivier>that we are being threatened by outside forces. <v Prof. Gert Olivier>We perceive the outside world or we used to perceive the

<v Prof. Gert Olivier>outside world as being hostile, in a sense, to us. <v Narrator>The earliest form of the Laager was a prickly hedge planted by the first Dutch settlers <v Narrator>around their tiny settlement at the southwest tip of Africa to keep out Hottentots. <v Narrator>Thus, from the beginning, they established a racial barrier between those of European <v Narrator>origin, the Boers, and Native Africans, whom the Boers called Kaffirs, unbelievers. <v Narrator>In an age of slavery, the Boer farmer used slave labor. <v Narrator>He became essentially an overseer who shunned the manual work of his slaves. <v Narrator>His rigid Calvinism told him that his mission in Africa was to protect white Christian <v Narrator>civilization from the Barbarian. <v Prof. F. A. van Jaarsveld>One should remember that the Afrikaners regarded themselves just like the New <v Prof. F. A. van Jaarsveld>England as a chosen people, you know that is rooted in the Old Testament, in Protestant

<v Prof. F. A. van Jaarsveld>religion, Calvinism especially. <v Prof. F. A. van Jaarsveld>And in the interior of South Africa, they only had the Bible as literature because of <v Prof. F. A. van Jaarsveld>their isolation from the West, from the mother country, or well they were actually cut <v Prof. F. A. van Jaarsveld>off from Holland. So they got their ideas from directly <v Prof. F. A. van Jaarsveld>from the Bible. Some ideas in regard even to them on nonwhites which they regard as <v Prof. F. A. van Jaarsveld>Canaanites. <v Prof. F. A. van Jaarsveld>And themselves, as well as the chosen people with a mission. <v Narrator>The Afrikaners dilemma was this he has needed black muscles to work the land <v Narrator>for him, but he has always lived in fear that those same muscles would one day take <v Narrator>the land from him. <v Narrator>This created a push pull effect, keep the Kaffir in his place and his place <v Narrator>is working for the white boss. <v Narrator>In the 19th century, British imperial rule expanded to southern Africa. <v Narrator>They interfered very little with the frontier life of the Boers until 1834, when <v Narrator>they ordered the abolition of slavery for Afrikaners.

<v Narrator>This meant the ruin of their economy based on slave labor, and it was seen as <v Narrator>a first step towards miscegenation, which would destroy them as a people. <v Narrator>A folk. <v Narrator>In 1836, in an extraordinary gesture of self-reliance and courage, two <v Narrator>thousand Boers crossed the Orange River into the wilderness out of the bondage of British <v Narrator>rule, searching for free land in which to form a republic. <v Narrator>This movement northwards is called the great track. <v Narrator>Not all the Boers out, most remain behind under British rule. <v Narrator>This split among Afrikaners was to persist for a century. <v Narrator>Those who trekked had to be tough to survive. <v Narrator>Call the poor truckers. They have a romantic place in the hearts of Afrikaners. <v Afrikaner Farmer>They were pioneers to the backbone and was just rough going. <v Afrikaner Farmer>They were tough men coming down the mountains. <v Afrikaner Farmer>My grandmother, but I was still a youngster, told me how her

<v Afrikaner Farmer>father, her great father, grandfather told her how they came down the mountains by <v Afrikaner Farmer>stripping the wheels off and skidding the wagons down the Drakensberg and was very <v Afrikaner Farmer>steep. They used to put the two big wheels on the one side and the two small wheels, <v Afrikaner Farmer>because a wagon has two small wheels in front and two big girls at the back. <v Afrikaner Farmer>And this is how they sort of balanced out and <v Afrikaner Farmer>they went over the drop Drakensberg in the same spirit. <v Afrikaner Farmer>They were really opening up Afrikans. <v Afrikaner Farmer>Matter of fact, <v Afrikaner Farmer>we were truckers pushed into lands. <v Narrator>The Zulu considered theirs. And the many clashes are the fabric of Afrikaner mythology <v Narrator>in which the savagery and treachery of the Africans are contrasted with the heroism <v Narrator>of the four trekkers. <v Narrator>According to the Afrikaner version of history, in 1838, a Boer party of five <v Narrator>hundred faced a Zulu army ten thousand strong at the end of the battle. <v Narrator>A nearby river ran red with the blood of three thousand Zulus slain by Boer, cannon <v Narrator>and musket balls.

<v Narrator>Fighting for a Laager had not lost a single man. <v Narrator>Blood River showed what a small band of disciplined and well armed men could accomplish. <v Narrator>The lesson has not been forgotten. <v Narrator>Today, the white man in South Africa rules because he has the guns <v Narrator>and he's willing to use them. <v Narrator>In the wilderness, the is established their independent republics. <v Narrator>The Orange Free State and the Transvaal each with its elected president. <v Narrator>The Constitution of the Transvaal stated that the people desire no equality between <v Narrator>the colored people and the white inhabitants either in church or state. <v Narrator>But the Boers farm economy continued to depend on black labor. <v Narrator>It was the boy's misfortune that the Transvaal contained the richest gold deposits in <v Narrator>the world. The rand. <v Narrator>The Boers had trekked over half of southern Africa to get away from the British.

<v Narrator>Now the British coveted the gold rich Transvaal, the Boers could either capitulate <v Narrator>or fight. <v Narrator>They chose to fight the foremost imperialist power in the world to keep their republic. <v Narrator>The Boers knew the terrain were highly mobile, tough and resourceful. <v Narrator>Above all, they were fighting for their homeland against the bands of commandos who <v Narrator>probably totaled no more than forty thousand at any one time. <v Narrator>The British sent over a quarter of a million troops. <v Narrator>The British waged an incompetent and bungling campaign and stumbled their <v Narrator>way to victory. <v Narrator>Frustration at the commandos success drove the British to burn the border farms, <v Narrator>the source of the guerillas food supplies. <v Narrator>They herded the homeless women and children into concentration camps. <v Narrator>Only 5000 boys died in battle, but in the camps in appalling conditions, <v Narrator>5000 adults died and 20000 children. <v Narrator>For Afrikaners, the longer the armed camp is the symbol of invincibility,

<v Narrator>the concentration camp, the symbol of their degradation. <v Narrator>In 1982, in order to survive as a folk, the Boers had to surrender, <v Narrator>over half a century later, Afrikaners erected a memorial to their defeat. <v Narrator>A fallen warrior lies with a dagger in his heart. <v Narrator>But from the heart springs a powerful spirit of steel, a gleaming sword <v Narrator>in his hand, representing the rise of a new, triumphant Afrikaner nation. <v Narrator>In victory, the British imposed a parliamentary system on South Africa excluding most <v Narrator>non-whites, but Afrikaners outnumbered those of British origin. <v Narrator>They might win by the ballot, but they had lost by the bullet. <v Narrator>If they could apply the motto of their lost republic, unity makes strength. <v Narrator>In 1914, the National Party was formed to build Afrikaner unity

<v Narrator>against continuing British domination. <v Narrator>Its leader, General Hertzog, whose slogan was South Africa first, <v Narrator>Hertog had said only one person has the right to be boss in South <v Narrator>Africa, namely the Afrikaner. <v Narrator>The people feel their own power. <v Narrator>They have reached nation manhood and they feel that Afrikaners are not strangers <v Narrator>should rule the country. <v Narrator>The devastation of the Anglo Boer War had created a class of poor whites who scraped <v Narrator>subsistence from the soil. <v Narrator>Destitute, virtually there, one remaining possession was their white skin. <v Narrator>During the early decades of this century, drought and soil erosion drove these poor <v Narrator>white Afrikaners off their land into the cities they looked upon as the devil's own, <v Narrator>seeking the very manual jobs they had despised as fit only for blacks. <v Narrator>This mass migration became known as the second great trek.

<v Narrator>But in the cities, Afrikaners were strangers in their own country. <v Narrator>South Africa's economic strength lay in her mines diamonds, gold, coal, <v Narrator>iron ore and the mines were British and white workers, gold, <v Narrator>civilized labor had always been paid more than blacks and had all the best jobs. <v Narrator>The myth of racial superiority paid off in hard cash, but in 1921, <v Narrator>the price of gold fell. Mine owners said they had to cut costs <v Narrator>by employing cheaper blacks in jobs reserved for whites only. <v Narrator>The white miner is terrified by what they called the black peril seized <v Narrator>the British mind. Their slogan was Workers of the World Unite to keep South <v Narrator>Africa white.

<v Narrator>The government crushing the revolt. <v Narrator>The strikers were bomb showed and machine gunned into submission. <v Narrator>More than 200 whites died. Four of the rebellion's leaders went to the gallows singing <v Narrator>the red flag. <v Narrator>The white miners had been broken. <v Narrator>But within two years, white workers voted General Hertzog into power, Hertzog promised <v Narrator>protection against both British capitalists and competition from blacks. <v Narrator>During the 20s and 30s, the government established a powerful state monopoly is like <v Narrator>highscore, the Iron and Steel Corporation of South Africa to break the British monopoly <v Narrator>of economic power. <v Otto Krause>After all of it gone is essentially over this period <v Otto Krause>of this century, since the world will run a revolution against British dominance <v Otto Krause>inside Africa, it's even a continuing revolution. <v Narrator>The color bar for the first time got the backing of law.

<v Narrator>It became illegal for a black man to lay a brick at the end of the 30s, <v Narrator>Afrikaners were finally reaching the unity, which would guarantee them full political <v Narrator>power in South Africa. When Britain declared war on Germany. <v Kowie Marais>And the opportunity was that a 1939 to remain neutral. <v Kowie Marais>But Smuts, with a very small parliamentary majority, decided that we <v Kowie Marais>should side with Britain, then help to fight her wars again against <v Kowie Marais>a nation, Germany, against which we had nothing. <v Kowie Marais>And we simply said that we should have stayed out of the war as <v Kowie Marais>the Irish Republic had done. <v Kowie Marais>That this was a repetition of the completely, <v Kowie Marais>completely mistaken attitude taken up by the government in 1940. <v Kowie Marais>And we young people, I and thousands of others, more <v Kowie Marais>than 200000 Afrikaners formed the also a brand and <v Kowie Marais>be resisted the government.

<v Kowie Marais>We embarked on subversive schemes. <v Kowie Marais>In order to hold with in South Africa, a large part of the military forces <v Kowie Marais>that Smuts could whip up. <v Kowie Marais>We were successful in many respects, but of course, many of us were caught. <v Kowie Marais>Many prominent people now in politics in South Africa, including the prime minister and <v Kowie Marais>myself, for instance, thought and <v Kowie Marais>we were in town. And we were kept in internment during the entire course <v Kowie Marais>of the war. <v Narrator>Smuts, the prime minister, aware of the danger of an uprising, confiscated all privately <v Narrator>owned weapons and interned hundreds of Afrikaners under an emergency law. <v Kowie Marais>Oh, yes, we were bent on revolution, we weren't waiting for that at the <v Kowie Marais>time when Britain would be conquered, be invaded <v Kowie Marais>and we'd lose the war. <v Kowie Marais>We would seize that opportunity in order to call out the Republicans, so they began to <v Kowie Marais>divest as ourselves completely from the bonds with the British Empire.

<v Narrator>Other economies were divided once more. <v Narrator>The nationalist leader, Dr. Malone, denounced Smuts, saying he had turned <v Narrator>South Africa into a Jewish imperialistic war machine. <v Narrator>Yet a majority of South Africans fighting troops were Afrikaners. <v Narrator>Ironically, this war, opposed so bitterly by many Afrikaners, <v Narrator>gave the final thrust to Afrikaner nationalism in the massive effort to feed <v Narrator>and equip the allies. South Africa went through a boom period. <v Narrator>There was plenty of work and the influx of Afrikaners to the towns increased. <v Narrator>Blacks also flocked to the towns and took jobs previously closed to them <v Narrator>by 1946. <v Narrator>There were as many blacks as whites in the towns. <v Narrator>Dr Nelson expressed his people's shock. <v Narrator>And that new blood river, he said black and white meet together in much closer contact <v Narrator>and a much more binding struggle than when one hundred years ago.

<v Narrator>The circle of wagons protected the Laager and musket clashed with spear. <v Narrator>Today, black and white jostle together in the same labor market. <v Narrator>This resurgence of the black peril gave the National Party the formula for victory in the <v Narrator>first postwar election. The apartheid election of 1948. <v Narrator>To Afrikaners, it seemed that Smuts had not only sold out to Britain, but had gone soft <v Narrator>on the blacks. While many young Afrikaners had been willing to fight in Smuts British <v Narrator>wars, none wanted their racial dominance undermined in any way. <v Narrator>This threat finally united Afrikaners, the nationalists platform said. <v Narrator>If we reject the master race principle and the non-Europeans are given the vote. <v Narrator>How can the European remain boss? <v Narrator>The European must retain the right to rule the country and keep it a white man's country. <v Narrator>Dr. Malone's cabinet, the first composed purely of Afrikaners,

<v Narrator>began to implement the final answer to the black peril apartheid, the complete <v Narrator>separation of blacks from the white Laager. <v Narrator>Discrimination had always existed in South Africa. <v Narrator>Whatever white group was in power, but the nationalists now institutionalized <v Narrator>it, depriving non-whites of any expectation of ever achieving equality with <v Narrator>whites. <v Narrator>Of course, given the situation, the situation as we find <v Narrator>it here in South Africa, we had to exploit alternative <v Narrator>means to solve the problems or to <v Narrator>restructure society without endangering <v Narrator>the future. Otherwise, I mean, basically one may dithered about it, but <v Narrator>it is a match of white survival. <v Narrator>I mean, and in that phrase, I include very strongly Afrikaner <v Narrator>survival. <v Narrator>The emotional strength of Afrikaner nationalism was evident in 1949 when

<v Narrator>two hundred and fifty thousand Afrikaners made a triumphal pilgrimage to the Ford truck, <v Narrator>a monument. <v Narrator>Now united, the folk would decide South Africa's destiny. <v Narrator>The years of division of second class citizenship had conditioned Afrikaners to <v Narrator>thinking of themselves as a people besieged, built like a fortress <v Narrator>before a trucker monument symbolized not just the people but the state as <v Narrator>Laager. <v Narrator>South Africa was an independent country within the British Commonwealth, but it <v Narrator>was still subject to the Crown, a figurehead hated by nationalists whose memory <v Narrator>stretched back to the Anglo Boer War. <v Narrator>The concentration camps and the lost republics <v Narrator>Afrikaners in their thousands welcomed the royal family while the British connection was <v Narrator>there. Afrikaner loyalties would remain divided. <v Narrator>So in 1960, the nationalists held a referendum on whether

<v Narrator>South Africa should become a republic no longer tied to Britain. <v Narrator>English. South Africans felt that this was the first step towards complete isolation from <v Narrator>the rest of the world, and the bitter debate split the country. <v Narrator>English versus Afrikans. <v Narrator>The nationalists carried the day. <v Narrator>The Anglo Boer War was finally won 60 years later by the boards. <v Narrator>That same year, 1960, British Prime Minister Macmillan spoke before parliament <v Narrator>in Cape Town at the end of an African tour. <v Narrator>He warned that black nationalism was sweeping Africa. <v MacMillan>And the most striking of all the impression that I have formed since I left London a <v MacMillan>month ago. <v MacMillan>He's of the strength. <v MacMillan>Of this African national consciousness. <v MacMillan>The wind of change is blowing through all this content. <v MacMillan>Whether we like it or not. <v MacMillan>This growth of national consciousness is a political fact.

<v Narrator>MacMillan's speech was prophetic within two months. <v Narrator>Sharpeville, a crowd of unarmed blacks demonstrating against <v Narrator>the pass laws which restricted their freedom of movement were fired upon by the South <v Narrator>African police. <v Narrator>Sixty nine were killed. One hundred and eighty wounded. <v Narrator>This was not the first time White had shot down blacks, but Afrikaners saw <v Narrator>it as a new threat. They had defeated the British. <v Narrator>Only to be confronted with an ultimately more formidable enemy. <v Narrator>The old black peril in the shape of black African nationalism. <v Narrator>The National Party pervades Afrikaner society from the grassroots level to the so-called

<v Narrator>Brotherhood, a secret society said to make all the important policy decisions in <v Narrator>South Africa. The party is intimately linked to the Dutch Reformed Church, <v Narrator>to the schools and universities, cultural organisations, certain trade unions <v Narrator>and Afrikans newspapers. <v Narrator>In addition, the nationalists have packed all branches of government with their <v Narrator>supporters. The civil service, the police, military leadership, judgeships, <v Narrator>prison warders, the secret police are overwhelmingly Afrikaner <v Narrator>out of a small white population of 4 million. <v Narrator>There are over a million more Afrikaners than English speakers with <v Narrator>their ability to mobilize the Afrikaner vote and to a large degree, mold public opinion. <v Narrator>The nationalists increased their share of the popular vote throughout the 60s. <v Narrator>They rendered all other parties impotent and even outlawed some <v Narrator>once in power. The National Party controlled the law making process. <v Narrator>Immediately it began to manipulate the law, making it the major weapon of the Laager.

<v Narrator>Every aspect of human activity. Sport, sex education. <v Narrator>Politics was control with every law enacted. <v Narrator>The freedom of the individual was whittled away. <v Narrator>The one standard. <v Narrator>The Nationalists have set for themselves by which everything is judged as <v Narrator>the security of the state. <v Narrator>And since 1948, the state has meant the Afrikaner. <v Kruger>That is the sole responsibility of the governing party and the people that <v Kruger>govern. Because they know everything that's going on. <v Kruger>They have been placed there by the people. <v Kruger>And they have to see. <v Kruger>That the safety of the people. <v Kruger>Which is to them a holy method placed in their hands. <v Kruger>Must not be in jeopardy. <v Kruger>And therefore, it is therefore full responsibility to decide at what stage. <v Kruger>The ordinary rights of the individual should and can and must be curtailed.

<v Narrator>There was protest after protest by black and white South Africans. <v Narrator>But even protest became in many ways equated with treason. <v Speaker>Immediately, I have to use a. <v Narrator>Despite their own experience as revolutionaries, the Afrikaner nationalists felt <v Narrator>no sympathy for a black nationalist. <v Narrator>They saw them as rivals for political power to be suppressed at all costs. <v Narrator>Foremost among the National Party's measures to quell opposition was the Suppression <v Narrator>of Communism Act of 1950 by this act. <v Narrator>Communism was defined so broadly as to include anything or anyone advocating <v Narrator>racial equality. <v Narrator>Therefore, any concept, even a Christian concept.

<v Narrator>We're on the basis of one's Christian belief, you withstand the policy of separate <v Narrator>development could be seen to be an offense under the Suppression of Communism Act. <v Narrator>In December 1956, in a nationwide roundup, the South African government <v Narrator>arrested 156 persons of all races on charges of treason. <v Narrator>The accused had called for equal rights for all citizens, black and white. <v Narrator>The prosecution argued that this was incitement to violence. <v Narrator>Four, by Afrikaner logic, racial equality in South Africa could only <v Narrator>be achieved by violence. <v Narrator>The longer would allow for change and no other way. <v Kowie Marais>An act of intimidation to scare away anybody. <v Kowie Marais>White Mike toyed with the idea of using <v Kowie Marais>communist or communist ideology or tactics in order to subvert <v Kowie Marais>the state courts. By and large, you view and interpret <v Kowie Marais>the definition of communism in the light of the possible dangers that might

<v Kowie Marais>arise if peasants pursue their line of conduct that they <v Kowie Marais>are charged with control of subversive. <v Narrator>It is as vital as control of subversive acts. <v Narrator>For Afrikaners, communism is the antichrist and liberal thinking will lead <v Narrator>to the destruction of the race, <v Narrator>Afrikaners have a term for those outside the Laager focusing on <v Narrator>an enemy of the people. <v Narrator>Folksand need commit no crime. <v Narrator>Suspicion that he has thought or done something the authorities do not like is enough <v Narrator>for enemies of the people. <v Narrator>The nationalists introduced a unique punishment banning a form of <v Narrator>ex-communication. No trial, no appeal to the courts. <v Narrator>One man makes the decision. <v Narrator>The Minister of Justice. <v Beyers Naude>Banning is a term which is used under the suppression of Communism Act, <v Beyers Naude>whereby a person is prohibited from seeing more

<v Beyers Naude>than one individual at a time, is prohibited from entering <v Beyers Naude>any building where educational material is being prepared or printed <v Beyers Naude>or published or distributed is prevented from entering any building where <v Beyers Naude>a trade union is registered. <v Beyers Naude>Aware is prevented from entering any area which is prohibited <v Beyers Naude>team like, for instance, an African township. <v Beyers Naude>He is not allowed to attend any gatherings, including social and <v Beyers Naude>political gatherings. He is forced into a situation of spiritual <v Beyers Naude>and mental and emotional isolation. <v Beyers Naude>He has to live on his own inner resources. <v Beyers Naude>He has is SFL. He feels that he is rejected by society. <v Beyers Naude>And therefore as a result of that, he simply feels that he withdraws <v Beyers Naude>into himself and is not able to live as a normal human being. <v Beyers Naude>In fact, it becomes a subhuman existence. <v Narrator> As Afrikaners during the Second World War had resorted to sabotage against the

<v Narrator>legitimate government, so did those who opposed the government in the early 60s <v Narrator>because lawful protests seem closed to them. <v Narrator>Young English and Jewish South Africans committed a number of acts of sabotage <v Narrator>which were used by the government to further justify suppression of dissent. <v Narrator>The next wave of active resistance was ideologically different, involving black and white <v Narrator>leaders like Nelson Mandela and Bram Fischer, who turned out to be the head <v Narrator>of the South African Communist Party. <v Prof. Andre Birk>But they sat down beforehand and calculated very carefully the risks involved. <v Prof. Andre Birk>The line of action to be taken weigh the pros and cons of every possible situation <v Prof. Andre Birk>that could evolve and acted accordingly. <v Prof. Andre Birk>And when they were caught, there was a an incredible <v Prof. Andre Birk>sense of dignity about the whole proceeding. <v Prof. Andre Birk>They not for a moment contemplate <v Prof. Andre Birk>denying what they had done.

<v Prof. Andre Birk>They made it very clear that there were no other courses <v Prof. Andre Birk>of action open to them in the circumstance of South Africa was heading downhill in <v Prof. Andre Birk>an absolutely destructive negative enforcement of rigid <v Prof. Andre Birk>apartheid and the only way in which they <v Prof. Andre Birk>found or thought that they could change society was through violent measures. <v Narrator>For Afrikaners, the most important figure in this group of revolutionaries was Bram <v Narrator>Fischer. He was one of Afrikanerdom's brilliant men, grandson of <v Narrator>a leading statesman, son of a judge president, himself a former leader of the <v Narrator>Johannesburg Bar. For this man to be head of the Communist Party of South Africa <v Narrator>was a treacherous fault in the Laager. <v Beyers Naude>I think it would be correct to say that Fischer is regarded by <v Beyers Naude>the vast majority of Afrikaners as a traitor, not <v Beyers Naude>only to the Afrikans cause, but also to the Christian faith. <v Narrator>At his trial, Fischer quoted the words of Paul Kruger, the Boer leader in the struggle

<v Narrator>against the British. "With confidence, we lay our case before the whole world. <v Narrator>Whether we win or die, freedom will rise in Africa like the sun from the morning <v Narrator>clouds." <v Narrator>President Kruger had been talking of freedom for the white Afrikaner. <v Narrator>Fischer was talking about freedom for the black African. <v Narrator>Fischer was given a life sentence. He contracted cancer and after a lengthy petitioning <v Narrator>by his family, was released from jail to die. <v Narrator>After his cremation, Minister of Justice Kruger concerned that his grave would become <v Narrator>a martyr shrine, demanded the return of his ashes. <v Narrator>Since Fischer was a criminal, he said they belonged to the state. <v Speaker>In the mid 60s, Fischer was virtually the only Afrikaner speaking against the Laager. <v Speaker>But by the time of his death in 1975, the voices of Afrikaners dissenting had <v Speaker>multiplied.

<v Speaker>Breyton Breytonback foremost Afrikans poet of his generation, married a Vietnamese woman <v Speaker>in Paris. Home with his wife to receive a poetry prize, the full meaning <v Speaker>of apartheid struck him. <v Speaker>The law forbade their living together. <v Speaker>In Europe, he criticized the nationalist government. <v Speaker>Returning secretly, he was arrested. <v Speaker>At his trial, he was accused of helping form a secret organization of speaking <v Speaker>in Paris against the South African government, of recruiting trade unionists, <v Speaker>of inciting people to send letters. <v Speaker>He was sentenced to nine years in jail. <v Speaker>I believe it has the highest prison population in in the free world, so-called <v Speaker>free world. <v Speaker>They were leading AFRICOM's writer, Professor Brink is outspoken enough to be censored. <v Speaker>One of the South African censorship is severe. <v Speaker>Some 20000 books are banned outright, which to me are just a few symptoms <v Speaker>of what essentially is a violent society and apartheid.

<v Speaker>To me, it's essentially just this the legalising <v Speaker>and legitimizing of violence in a sort of institutionalized form <v Speaker>so that. <v Speaker>Everything relies on violence. <v Speaker>I've expressed my very strong convictions about any communist ideology <v Speaker>being acceptable in our country. <v Speaker>Stated it very clearly that I totally reject it. <v Speaker>But I do wish to make the point that as far as the Black Society of South Africa is <v Speaker>concerned, increasingly there is growing the belief that some <v Speaker>form of African socialism is needed <v Speaker>and will be acceptable to them. <v Speaker>And my pleas that we as whites participate in the debate <v Speaker>and the discussion with the leaders of our black community to listen and to <v Speaker>hear what they are saying to this. <v Speaker>Dr. Beyers Naude was a minister in high standing of the Dutch Reformed Church. <v Speaker>But this position was taken from him when he became head of the Christian Institute,

<v Speaker>which is dedicated to racial equality, writes Dr. Naude is an outspoken critic <v Speaker>of the South African government on moral grounds. <v Speaker>With his impeccable religious and political background, he is considered by that <v Speaker>government as all the more treacherous a fact that he is one of the few Afrikaners <v Speaker>trusted by blacks. <v Speaker>Intellectuals have historically formed an elite within Afrikaner does. <v Speaker>It is a special shock when men such as Naude, Brink and Breytonback make a stand <v Speaker>against nationalist policies. <v Speaker>If we are wise enough, we will look ahead and we will say, let <v Speaker>us work this out together. <v Speaker>It is accepted that every state is entitled. <v Speaker>In exceptional circumstances, you take exceptional measures. <v Speaker>To preserve its arms to get it. <v Speaker>South Africa believes it is a nation under siege from without and within. <v Speaker>And again, I went in this belief the minister of justice wields overwhelming powers.

<v Speaker>The measures here under the internal security bill. <v Speaker>The minister in his own right. <v Speaker>You and I can decide whether he detains somebody indefinitely. <v Speaker>It just puts him away. He disappears for a year. <v Speaker>No charge. No possibility of him. <v Speaker>For instance, you know, being able to appeal to a court of law. <v Speaker>It's the right of the individual to decide the future of a man <v Speaker>in the minister of justice. <v Speaker>Need not notify relatives of those arrested or reveal their names. <v Speaker>He has threatened newspapers which do publish the names of those detained under the <v Speaker>internal security bill. <v Speaker>Because of the weakness of the opposition parties, the only effective stand against the <v Speaker>government has come from the English language press of South Africa. <v Narrator>The nationalists have condemned it, calling it not a fourth estate, but a fifth <v Narrator>column. <v John Vortser>You can look at the propaganda that's being used against South Africa.

<v John Vortser>And mostly it comes from within South Africa itself. <v Narrator>Shot in June 1976, a man died <v Narrator>after falling from the fifth floor of police headquarters in Johannesburg shortly after <v Narrator>his arrest. <v Narrator>In nineteen seventy five alone, eighty five people died in their first week of <v Narrator>imprisonment, torture of prisoners is widely reported and <v Narrator>five years ago the newspapers, certainly the English newspapers in this country would <v Narrator>have kicked up a hell of a rumpus about this. <v Narrator>Now they prepared to keep it down and hide it in tiny little <v Narrator>notices somewhere in the middle pages of a newspaper. <v Narrator>Instead of really forcing the government to reveal something about this and to get <v Narrator>to the bottom of it. <v Narrator>Freedom of the press has been drastically curtailed by threats and indictments against <v Narrator>courageous newsmen to avoid official censorship. <v Narrator>The once powerful English language press now censors itself rigorously. <v Narrator>During the black riots of 1976, a number of reporters like Peter Magubane

<v Narrator>were beaten and imprisoned without charge because their reporting embarrassed the <v Narrator>government. Free reporting and criticism are treated as a threat to national <v Narrator>security. <v Narrator>It has been said that white South Africans have a passion for security rather <v Narrator>than liberty in their efforts to ensure that security, <v Narrator>Afrikaner nationalists have imprisoned thousands and thousands more into exile <v Narrator>and trying to safeguard the longer the laws of Afrikaner don't have created innumerable <v Narrator>enemies dedicated to its destruction. <v Narrator>During the quarter of a century that Afrikaner nationalists have ruled South Africa, a

<v Narrator>lot of the Afrikaner has improved considerably when the Afrikaners began their second <v Narrator>great trek off the land. The cities were places of poverty and humiliation. <v Narrator>Now those cities provide a comfortable and protected life where once <v Narrator>they were strangers, they are now at home in South Africa. <v Narrator>They speak of the new Afrikaner. <v Narrator>Schoolkids in small country towns still go barefoot. <v Narrator>But now it is not because they can't afford shoes. <v Narrator>A farmer whose grandfather probably was not much better off in his black neighbor now <v Narrator>flies his own plane. <v Narrator>There are more after a constant English universities. <v Narrator>Economically, Afrikaners are catching up on the English South Africans. <v Narrator>The descendants of the four truckers have come a long way, but they have not forgotten <v Narrator>the covered wagon and the Laager. <v Kowie Marais>All of them are naturally anxious. <v Kowie Marais>Worried about being plowed under, as they would call it, by

<v Kowie Marais>the blacks if they should come into PA. <v Narrator>In their minds, remains the fear of one final great trick. <v Narrator>The flight of the Afrikaner out of Africa. <v Narrator>North of Pretoria within the confines of a nature reserve lies the village of Ndebele, <v Narrator>picturesque. It is an attractive spot for white tourists who pay a government tax for <v Narrator>a visitor's permit. <v Narrator>But then <v Narrator>when they see tourists, the girls of Ndebele barely quit their games to strip for <v Narrator>Whiteman's cameras. <v Narrator>The show village of Ndebele is very much the ordinary Afrikaners idyl of a native <v Narrator>homeland, unspoiled, colorful, the natives busy with their handicrafts. <v Narrator>Obviously it will take the natives several hundred years to reach the level of the white <v Narrator>man. In the meantime, they are poor but contented.

<v Narrator>And Ndebele is a tribal entity. <v Narrator>A small group of people powerless. <v Narrator>No threat to the white man. <v Speaker>We know that if there is not the strength <v Speaker>of will on the part of the Afrikaner to follow the course he's chosen <v Speaker>and to do it in certain to a certain extent, ruthlessly. <v Speaker>Although I would say you will always, always strive to justify it vis-à-vis <v Speaker>certain moral principles. But if this is missing, I mean, we have <v Speaker>lost. Then we must capitulate. <v Speaker>Then we have no policy. <v Narrator>The Afrikaners policy for salvation is a part. <v Narrator>The separation of black from white apartheid divides South Africa <v Narrator>into one white country and nine black homeland. <v Narrator>Afrikaners argue that blacks belong in these tribal homelands, though most black

<v Narrator>people do not live there. Thus, on an unprecedented scale, Afrikaners <v Narrator>are depriving 17 million of their countrymen of their citizenship, making them <v Narrator>strangers in their own country. <v Afrikaner Student>You cannot bring together, which is so totally different, the economies <v Afrikaner Student>of European stock, our traditions are European, but we <v Afrikaner Student>evolved a different set of traditions to suit our being an African <v Afrikaner Student>people now. And we are different from the innovation, smooth <v Afrikaner Student>respect, but we different vary greatly from the other peoples. <v Afrikaner Student>We inhabit this country. <v Afrikaner Student>Yes, I think that each man has been giving his piece of country and the right to vote <v Afrikaner Student>in his country. And that is fair. <v Afrikaner Student>Because if you have to put if we have to say one man, one vote in South Africa <v Afrikaner Student>and just leave it open, then the white <v Afrikaner Student>is not going to get a fair share because he has contributed economically, <v Afrikaner Student>too, to making this country what it is today.

<v Afrikaner Student>And if you say tomorrow, one man, one vote, then who he doesn't. <v Afrikaner Student>And there is no chance for him. <v Afrikaner Student>So it's better that each person be given the chance to <v Afrikaner Student>have his piece of country and decide what he wants to live in and what he wants to do <v Afrikaner Student>with his country. <v Narrator>In fact, black South Africans have never been consulted on any of the laws governing <v Narrator>them. At a time when blacks are losing a tribal identity and gaining a national <v Narrator>consciousness, Afrikaners are trying to force retry idolization upon them. <v Narrator>Presented by Afrikaners as a just solution to each group, it's own country. <v Narrator>The details of apartheid reveal something else. <v Narrator>Apartheid reserves 87 percent of the land for four million whites, <v Narrator>13 percent for 17 million blacks. <v Narrator>By the end of the century, the black population will have increased to 30 million.

<v Narrator>Their land will not increase. <v Narrator>That is not all. The 87 percent of the land reserved for whites contains <v Narrator>virtually all the enormous mineral wealth, all the industry, all the harbors <v Narrator>and almost all the road and rail communications. <v Narrator>Not one of the so-called black homelands is now a viable economic <v Narrator>unit or can expect to be within the foreseeable future. <v Narrator>A map of the homelands looks like a crazy jigsaw puzzle of pieces <v Narrator>that will never fit together within South Africa. <v Narrator>The white Laager is to remain the strongest power bloc, with the other <v Narrator>black units forever fragmented and powerless. <v Narrator>What was done to their forebears three quarters of a century ago, Afrikaners are now <v Narrator>doing to others on a vaster scale in the government's terms. <v Narrator>This is the sanitary eradication of black spots involving the <v Narrator>mass deportation from their homes of millions of black people to what had been called

<v Narrator>dumping grounds. <v Narrator>There is no work. Medical services are few. <v Narrator>Malnutrition and infant mortality are commonplace. <v Narrator>Conditions resemble nothing so much as the concentration camps of the Anglo Boer <v Narrator>War, which Afrikaners themselves call an attempted genocide. <v Speaker>The Afrikaner is the instrument of change. <v Speaker>We know, we think that we are in the best position <v Speaker>to bring about the changes within the framework we have chosen. <v Speaker>So it's inevitable that there will be spillovers and fall off the city, etc. <v Speaker>And we are trying to tell the world in spite of the situation <v Speaker>as it is, please judge us also on our intentions because our intentions <v Speaker>are good and they can be explained in terms of Christian <v Speaker>or Christian moral principles as you follow them.

<v Speaker>But of course this this all will take time. <v Narrator>But the world's mistrust of apartheid is caused by this glaring contradiction. <v Narrator>The nationalists proclaim that their policy is to separate black from white. <v Narrator>Yet the present and future prosperity of the Afrikaner depends on cheap black labor. <v Narrator>In the minds, whites work side by side with blacks, but whites earn <v Narrator>10 times as much for that work. <v Narrator>On the farms, which provide white families with their cheap food. <v Narrator>A black farm worker receives perhaps three hundred dollars a year. <v Narrator>He can never own the land he works. <v Narrator>Almost every white child has its black nanny.

<v Narrator>Almost every white family, its servants who earn around $40 a month for long <v Narrator>and ill defined hours. <v Narrator>Black workers have practically no rights. <v Narrator>Least of all the right to strike. <v Narrator>For 100 years, there has been a black working class in South Africa. <v Narrator>Yet when Afrikaners speak of blacks, they still speak in stereotypes. <v Danie Greyling>According to the tribal custom, over all the centuries, the black <v Danie Greyling>man was the warrior and his wife had to to the lands and look after the <v Danie Greyling>cattle. So they used to that way of life. <v Danie Greyling>And either the chief can drink beer and the wife work. <v Danie Greyling>He's satisfied. He doesn't want to work. <v Narrator>Because of the country's tremendous economic boom, based largely on cheap black labor, <v Narrator>the number of blacks living in white South Africa has not decreased as promised by <v Narrator>the nationalists, but actually increased since the introduction of apartheid in <v Narrator>1948. <v Government Film Narrator>These are the people who have built South Africa into a modern industrial giant.

<v Government Film Narrator>South Africans of all colors and creeds sharing the rewards of a <v Government Film Narrator>free enterprise economy. <v Narrator>This government film tells a half truth. <v Narrator>Rapid economic growth has offered more jobs to non-whites, but they are prevented <v Narrator>by law from competing in an open job market with whites in <v Narrator>the event of a recession. Blacks are the first to lose their jobs, cushioning <v Narrator>the impact on whites. <v Narrator>Apartheid. The desire to push the black away has always been tempered by <v Narrator>the demands of the economy to increase the prosperity of the Afrikaner folk <v Narrator>in this upward movement. <v Narrator>Some of the black working class has inevitably risen too. <v Narrator>This makes the Laager vulnerable. A more skilled, better educated black workforce <v Narrator>could unite for higher wages and political power. <v Narrator>To prevent this, the government enforces tribal divisions that often erupt into gang <v Narrator>warfare and murder.

<v Narrator>During the Soweto riots in 1976, the Zulu migrant workers were pitted by the <v Narrator>police against other workers and schoolboys trying to organize a strike. <v Narrator>Because of white dependance on black labor, complete separation of the races has never <v Narrator>been achieved in South Africa. <v Narrator>Instead, blacks are forced to live in satellite townships outside South Africa's <v Narrator>cities. They have few amenities and are riddled with crime and violence, <v Narrator>giving South Africa the highest murder rate in the world. <v Narrator>Yet the efforts of the police are directed not at protecting blacks, but at controlling <v Narrator>them. A half million blacks are prosecuted each year for unlawful movement. <v Narrator>It has turned much of the black laboring class into criminals. <v Narrator>Within the system of apartheid, as now practiced, the homelands are breeding grounds of <v Narrator>migrant labor for white South Africa, while the black townships are vast

<v Narrator>labor camps. <v Narrator>Afrikaners are the warders. <v Narrator>Ever since the four truckers were the leader of the Pioneer column was directly <v Narrator>responsible for its survival, Afrikaner leaders have been thought to embody the will <v Narrator>of the people in South Africa. <v Narrator>Leaders of the National Party are selected above all for their ability to hold the party <v Narrator>together. Afrikaners, with their Laager mentality, believe that <v Narrator>without unity, survival is impossible. <v John Vortser>Ladies and gentlemen, this government. <v John Vortser>This Nationalist Party has been governing South Africa for 26 years <v John Vortser>under very difficult circumstances in the face of a hostile world. <v John Vortser>And I say to you, apart from anything else, the merit of the National Party <v John Vortser>lies in the fact that it has been able to hold this for South Africa for

<v John Vortser>26 years in the face of all these difficulties. <v Narrator>The National Party's appeal to English speaking South Africans as well as Afrikaners, <v Narrator>has lain in its power to maintain white dominance and white security <v Narrator>in the 1974 election. White South Africans endorsed firm nationalist <v Narrator>government by returning it to a 26 year of unbroken power. <v Narrator>The day after the election, their security was undermined completely. <v Narrator>The coup in Portugal 5000 miles away brought an anti-colonialist regime <v Narrator>resolve to withdraw from its African territories. <v Narrator>At one blow, South Africa lost two of her buffer states, Mozambique and Angola, <v Narrator>and the Laager was brought face to face with militant black African nationalism, <v Narrator>which South Africa equates with communism.

<v Speaker>The position today in Africa is that the black breeds and the whites <v Speaker>feed. <v Speaker>And we prefer prosperity and peace and development. <v Speaker>But now they're communists. <v Speaker>They breed hate. They supply weapons. <v Speaker>He open the way for socialistic states on the communist batton <v Speaker>and the communists are training these people in communism, taking all the <v Speaker>young people over to Russia for training, as has been done in Angola and Mozambique. <v Narrator>In Angola, the civil war threatened to bring victory to the Russian backed MPL. <v Narrator>Isolated at the foot of the continent, South Africa has always relied heavily upon <v Narrator>Western support. Western countries invest substantially in South Africa, <v Narrator>supply her with weapons and veto efforts to sanction her and the United Nations.

<v Narrator>Without this bulwark, the longer would crumble the country. <v Ivor Richard>Expulsion would be all too likely to encourage the most illiberal elements <v Ivor Richard>in South Africa. To take refuge in their famous laga earlier <v Ivor Richard>time. <v Narrator>Aware that her survival depends on this unspoken alliance. <v Narrator>Over the years, South Africa has carried on a massive public relations campaign to <v Narrator>convince the West that South Africa is strategically vital and a trusted <v Narrator>ally in the struggle with communism. <v PR Commercial>South Africa is ready to play a part in defense of the free world we know and <v PR Commercial>about which we care. Her striking power on land, sea and air <v PR Commercial>is there to be shared by all those committed to the desire for a world <v PR Commercial>at peace. <v Narrator>In the United States of 1975, the South Africans found a powerful friend who, <v Narrator>like them, feared communist influence in Africa, calling for an anti-communist

<v Narrator>crusade. South Africa entered the Angolan civil war. <v Narrator>But the American Congress refused to furnish funds for further CIA involvement in <v Narrator>Angola. <v Narrator>Left alone to face the MPAA, the victorious angle infection and its Cuban <v Narrator>ally, the South African forces withdrew. <v Narrator>They left behind white prisoners of war in the hands of black men. <v Narrator>For those outside the Laager, the myth of white South African invincibility had <v Narrator>been broken. <v Beyers Naude>The Angolan situation has brought South Africa in a certain sense <v Beyers Naude>to a crisis in its whole life, and it is existence and South Africa will never <v Beyers Naude>be the same again. The whole Angolan event brought home to the white <v Beyers Naude>community the vulnerability of the whole situation. <v Beyers Naude>And the possible threat which now might emerge from the north, threatening <v Beyers Naude>the present political and economic status quo of South Africa.

<v Beyers Naude>As far as the blacks are concerned, it has brought an upsurge of hope <v Beyers Naude>and expectation. <v Narrator>And circled by black enemies, its own policies have created the Laager erupted <v Narrator>within, but Afrikaners still held the weapons. <v Narrator>The result was killing of unarmed civilians, including children <v Narrator>or Afrikaner nationalists. <v Narrator>The disturbances that swept the country and the South African winter of 1976 were, above <v Narrator>all else, bad public relations. <v Narrator>The actual threat to internal security was not great. <v Narrator>Afrikaners were willing to pay a very high price in lives as long as they were black <v Narrator>lives. But far more damaging was the threat to business confidence <v Narrator>in South Africa. It was starkly revealed that any continuing strike by <v Narrator>black workers could break the South African economy. <v Narrator>And because of apartheid there, politics of exclusion, Afrikaners had no <v Narrator>dialog with black nationalists except for force.

<v Otto Krause>And all I say as an Afrikaner, as we once did when a white <v Otto Krause>nation, namely the British, wanted to take us over. <v Otto Krause>We've got news for you. <v Otto Krause>And as much as we had news for the British, granted we lost, <v Otto Krause>so we will have news against those black South Africans who want to <v Otto Krause>take us over. <v Otto Krause>And in that sense, taking, taking the matter to a crunch. <v Otto Krause>We will and must necessarily if we believe in the survival of our nation <v Otto Krause>fight them off. <v Beyers Naude>No form of nationalism which is designed <v Beyers Naude>to ensure its own survival and its own security, <v Beyers Naude>you know, can tolerate another form of nationalism which threatens. <v Beyers Naude>Afrikaner nationalism is the urge in the Afrikaner to secure <v Beyers Naude>his identity, to secure his future, to secure his dominance,

<v Beyers Naude>because he believes that only in that is he able to continue to exist <v Beyers Naude>as an Afrikaner and maintain maintain his identity. <v Beyers Naude>Therefore, if African or black nationalism emerges as <v Beyers Naude>a possible threat to that concept, The Afrikaner is <v Beyers Naude>going to try everything in his power to crush that black nationalism. <v Beyers Naude>He will not succeed. <v Beyers Naude>In the same way as the British, when they tried to impose, you know, their former British <v Beyers Naude>imperialism upon the Afrikaner did not succeed. <v Beyers Naude>The tragedy is that the Afrikaner doesn't realize that in the same way <v Beyers Naude>as the British were not able to impose their concept of nationalism upon him in the same <v Beyers Naude>way his attempts at ensuring his own safety in this way and security <v Beyers Naude>that they will fail miserably. <v Narrator>The architect of the new Afrikans University in Johannesburg intended <v Narrator>it to be a summation of the spirit of Afrikanerdom. <v Narrator>But from the outside, this place of learning turns out to be once again

<v Narrator>only a Laager whose massive walls defy a hostile world <v Narrator>in a last ditch stand. <v Narrator>The interior holds a greater shock. <v Narrator>For this bastion, which protects young Afrikaners from the outside world and <v Narrator>molds their minds is not only their Laager, but their prison.