The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour; Special: Apartheid's People

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provided by the station and other public television stations and the corporation for public broadcasting the most familiar image in south africa today is one else in violence in south africa as a land of enormous complexity of homeland and many different places it is a land where some five million whites who were more than twenty four million blacks they do it through the legally sanctioned system of segregation known as apartheid this program works in south africa through the eyes of those who know apartheid's these and charlayne hunter gault last fall i spent a month in south africa with the production team to prepare a series of reports for the mac mia

lehrer newshour i'm gonna was to find out what everyday life is like for the people who live there what we found were some extraordinary individuals struggling to come to terms each in a different way with apartheid not much has changed in south africa since we were there the government has severely restricted media coverage and some of the areas we visited the official body count has gone up as blacks and whites had been caught in repeated outbreaks of violence it now stands at over eleven hundred killed most of them black since the government imposed a state of emergency last july but for the people you are about to meet life goes on pretty much as it did when we first encountered them our journey began in johannesburg south africa's largest and richest city from there we headed for the black township of quiet tamer twenty five miles to the southeast whatever doesn't appear on the official government maps of south africa like all black townships it is a

satellite of an all white town in this case the town of springs i'm watching now is a dusty sprawling place on to more than one hundred thousand men women and children on the streets from early morning going about their daily routines those routines very unemployment is high and many of the men are idle maintaining stable family life can be extremely difficult this is kristen closely watching us catholic church and this is his jacket add it to a living and working like a man for the first three years and

how they wes moore nicholas coyne and three it also a sign of people who when asked at least bankrupt people moment in the system and this system this has been used people today i'm livin beliefs or being accused in egypt and we are nothing

and because we're nothing in prison oh the parish priest a catholic community is in africa on his name is father peter most africans have never been inside a lot of people is different my people in quentin movie that people are then see an army of people beautiful people and arrests are no homes to go away but i guess it didn't you are changing and this

is the really difficult because it's a potent to me it's one of the greatest events the greatest in my country please it is apartheid that has led to the violent uprisings in places like quite tame the police and the army have waged a brutal campaign over the past six months left of the record of the georgian police to justify their actions saying they are merely trying to contain wanton violence they fired rubber bullets and tear gas at random sometimes there but in terms of the flow of children with the victims of the attacks i don't entertain violence against

him back sometimes people are pushed into effect and haven't kept trying to in the past to be patient time has run out and it seems like there's nothing we can do to stop its pursuit of young people from the indictment for more than six months makes patrols of army and police marched down the streets of quite tame and looking for children during that period the children to avoid cutting their schools the government responded with a get tough approach anybody caught out of school without permission was running a risk but the student stood firm when we spoke with him before the boycott ended they explained why they were in school not because it wanted political problems that a good occasion with the senator conducts to visit the difference between south african whites education and

complexity kitchen with an equal about tens if you take the syllabus of the lines much more advanced than mexicans eighteen cents billon avenue computers and the public schools getting computer science leno know what is good and what is not good and that this room would want to one day and demeaning it's kind of education beyond that then she said we need to teach you just given to him just how they do things and that has only been better things and so they don't want to hustle contest we want to take a flu live western demonstrations continued until last month was to voluntarily decided to return to school or that the police tried to force them back and father peter remembers what happened that it doesn't taste where image to going to the classrooms

and beat up the tune from it as neutral and i couldn't understand this really become a nominee told you the stories that you believe in well there's looting that don't have been speaking the truth was suddenly struck me is the ones that you can love being out for that fifty six years and it was known so if you can let all been brought up in that the only thing that these people understand is the strong arm of the law at the main going to do what they're supposed to be there was ample evidence of the beatings these were the lucky ones some are worse off and ended up in the hospital the authorities defended the police action the implant the lid of silence on the incident

that the students who ended up once again for back to school under heavy guard the children were not the only ones being that the police it was also troubling one sister agatha street her friends are we singling wasn't all that we sell guns or should be an unlicensed of art thats when the most popular places in what she beams are legal but since they are the only private places where people and townships in gathering have a turn their use in real trouble with the authorities that is why the police action against some content when probate need to know what

the next minute the family's humble because that's what did it into something else let me be he's very sensitive and that is not true the reason was not charged with anything either but of all those still brutally attacked at night she was singled out for the world's leading special treatment sister agatha doesn't think

so i've cooked happened to me as well recognized that it would have been pretty that one shouldn't be different to me it could happen to me a swing i think so more than thirty two people have been killed in fighting about the state security forces in the past six months here as elsewhere most funerals become political that's walking through the graveyard and plotting his age sister agatha told me about one funeral that she says partly explains why they get so politically charged right now yes we have a symmetry it looks empty vessel and on that particular day of the funeral it was quite different they honed singing with people who had attended the funerals in fact

it is that they've done is overtly which was also hit and tamales you can listen to some of it so it is sad way they police casts the parent's off all sorts of me as the procession is coming to us that if you get a group of song young people of age in twelve fourteen sixteen from the position towards the place with the law what do you mean

and that's wayne fan that people sort of based on site of the group where we meet but into this group threatens the best of them are cops and by that time the name had been thought it was real ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah the presence of the state security forces and their agents continues to air to the volatility of the townships the end may not be in sight but father peter thinks he sees in the states actions clearest signals about the future and i think eventually i think they lost or maybe they have lost because the country's interim government at the moment you know if it's not correct and that's this is going to solve this is going to do it to get to its vivid over the country

and realize we had riots in nineteen fifty six to nineteen sixty and again nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy six they load content this time ago and clinton and i don't think they blew up the change as really start at the end of that people are going to be that's father peter his vision of the future but today's reality is that blacks were denied the right to vote in south africa have no real power and the vast majority of the struggle to survive for some the struggle has produced a certain amount of economic success that success is usually achieved by living and working in two different worlds as we discovered when we visited so when show the giant black satellite of johannesburg itself at dawn the day

begins for the first wave of black workers the maids nannies t service chauffeurs and others who serve the white city of johannesburg about an hour later comes the second way people who make up the small liberal in atlanta plans that people like thirty five year old writer and two of that show he joined secretary journalist oil industry executives managers and others who don't have to get to work quite so early some three hundred and fifty thousand of somewhere those two million residents make this journey no matter their status they all end up in the same white plains it's like you don't want to have to compare myself mentally fought a work situation where i meet completely different people and those kind of statement which

is q lonely of a challenge because it gives me an option to prove myself the simple life jon's pick user at a white man's place because it's a place of work it's a place of exploitation say mom and recently who smilingly tune johannesburg is also bald eagle only the zulu word for girl but for most lax there is little blown hear your average wage is about a hundred dollars a month they perform within for services without going to a halt but the government only allows nonwhites to work here not to live here or in any other white city in fact blacks are required by law to carry special passes that restrict where they can

live and work blacks must always have on a person what they call the dome house when him to tonight show believes the train a special bus brings him to this american based multinational advertising company this is where that show the works it is here that he earns his living as an executive a specialist in selling to the black consumer market like most businesses in south africa this company has not escaped the economic crisis that's gripping the country a crisis exacerbated by international pressure on the government to do something about apartheid in south africa economics and politics of forced inmates although it is such a sensitive issue for american based companies that we were allowed inside this one only on condition that the company remain anonymous it is nine fifteen in the morning and that show boat is his first meeting of the day called by the marketing

director the company is launching a new television campaign aimed at increasing sales of a milk product to black consumers and in that show that has over all responsibility to see it through all phases of production especially getting the light fails pick tj visit we should say i'm not conscious in the times article is report on the leaflet described as a patient's consultant so i have to remain inexpensive that spirit of enlightened

self interest has helped propel natural internal management today he earns about nine thousand dollars a year although his white counterpart there is roughly twice the disparity is not the only thing that disturbs natural but when un report have to shut off my wheels and b the pessimism as to his clinic is trying to establish a patient of corporations can produce the best possible work in a with different outlooks to its life to him the company's subscribes to the sullivan principal is a voluntary code of conduct for american based companies doing business in south africa it calls for desegregation in the workplace and black advancement into management still although the code has been in place for nine years ninety five percent of the managers in such companies it and it is this white world that nature always constantly struggling to cope with it

sometimes you do that you can try to hot and doesn't come close nationally and when i turned to steven as well just because we can we do try to get to gather most so shallow to non bikram they invite me to the places but mostly i don't go because i feel that i'm not going to be happy so i'll be doing it to please the automated to you to lose all their clients and do have friends were a visitor

and why i work on them simply just tan as they wanted to and they wanted to come that didn't want to you know in person or what they just wanted to experience for themselves so it was easier to handle such people and people will go there just to satisfy their choosing to go i'm going to go back into the suburbs and turn out of clinton so that on the bottle it up and serve black friends from so that the police didn't suspect to be their perceptions of letters so as long as this thing driven into a different world and that's not the thing for me there is another difference between you and your white colleagues in that you have to carry a chance everywhere you go how do you feel about them but as an insult

to target us with a local prison philip glass on my way to work i mean the people i work with my bosses when i don't come up with pork and want to know why because you always have to have them come and present you say that you're working for them and all that so that you can be reduced now that gives them an insight into the weapons we have been in a way that kids so that it's an opportunity to educate the people that we wanted all is not so long as it seems simple because americas the process at the end of the day i'm looking forward to being with my femininity as the collection but there's always that person in that leaving might suburbia or it's a

modern going into the kettle are so many characters who have to you can see this morgue with dust dirt in the least because most of the people going to do it six thirty pm so when his influence what the station it's the end of the day and the end of the line pointing to

pay matt show biz wife mindy show usually a lifelong phobia then her husband she is a schoolteacher like most wives is aware so as one job ends another begins at home he has to be an egg for organizer figuring out how to share the space in the kitchen as well as in the rest of the house with their two children that show was a mother and assorted relatives and visitors there's no dining room so meals are informal affairs with people in the living room in shifts this is not unusual and somewhere though there is never enough housing to go around firstly the houses of two small

house in chile and rednecks so they turn to to be out on the streets strolling about seeing friends and today so many people in the streets mainly because the jobs in the economy times that leave in an agenda driven many to the streets we chose cause an increase in the sale of an informal sectors people try to make ends meet selling to get some love people are getting very impatient when they're getting to that extent where they are prepared to die for this bus stations that become so to suggest anything goes over and i think that causes the blame lies along with the people that have the gun i don't see myself as being

that as helping at like business too but let me let my liquor need to two men actually learning from them i'm learning the need to creatures of business with her whole and if things you know get that i could hop over to the store experience that has been withheld from but let's for the moment and finding where they're getting promoted to bring that tune let's imagine doing to them and so instead to nashville but remains like most of his black countryman caught between conflicting emotions of their life goes on but it is overcast with uncertainty of his countrymen that show is worried about their children's it is

thank you our next stop was the black township of leander a satellite of all whites a condom there we met a man who was determined to take an active part in shaping the future for all blacks but particularly for black workers the people who fuel south africa's economy this can't wait to is the mood for power to the people they're rallying cry in this room full of

black minorities this recession in a black township is where their leader and cyril ramaphosa he has almost single handedly put their fight for equality in the mines into the headlines and into public consciousness tonight soon lose its wonders and courses all speak with one voice a battle cry these conditions what it to the number of things one is to recruit members into the union and to some those who were really joined again

to raise their level of consciousness to make them see the union as not only an organization that move fight will better wages and their working conditions organization that it was during his childhood in the black township of western native iran opposes own consciousness raising the game it was the sixties and the start of a new face of black protests often fatal clashes with the police and then as now another state of emergency to screw those soldiers over to college and i know most

of this more involved than i had lived to find my way and so that's the number one point where at running away from a soldier walk away with all that happened i didn't understand moses i knew one thing they're wide later ramaphosa found safety and comfort in this film it's a widow where he lived with his family his father of policemen his mother tea server in a white business office early on she noticed something unusual about her son he used to others who didn't go to the cdc and the thing is mallett care when he's got to know that when he's

squatting growing up i didn't see that day what he's going to be just hey i didn't know i just being from isis and they're going to have to fly that i've tested badly he used to care about it then they're going to use and you must do this and you must do this you can also you can the quality's his mother thought it was later manifested in college nemo hoes and became leader of the math and south african students organization he was sent to jail for his house mr jin that's hopeful that for eleven months now there are my parents to come and soon after four months of detention and i was interrogated post everyday with those stressful month there were moments of brutal husband formed the piece of those things just lead to further bitterness in

because senate committee they are able to do this to me who was a student who had never carried any known ties to overthrow the government won there would be a lot worse to people who have tried to work on that and i didn't care but when a poseur overcame such feelings and went on to earn a law degree and satisfied with law however this grandson of a diamond mine worker was lured to the union movement although he's never worked in the mine is now a pivotal leader not only of the nation's largest single union the national union of mines but he is also a key player in a newly organized federations the congress of south african trade unions with some thirty to trade unions and half a million years her black miners from the beginning have formed the backbone of south africa's mining industry especially the goldfields

among the richest in the world but apartheid law has long stood in the way of any significant black advancement always restricting skilled work to white miner's only what are the lasting certificate the law from its own lives to acquire that technically are not even minors and yet they perform almost every mining function including blasting and many others that whites considered even be nice or too dangerous industry has refused to be more enlightened has refused to do away with racial discrimination has actually encouraged the apartheid system in the work situation see a widening of this thing when we reduced in that sense of thing but do you want to get it industry obviously sees it differently in its recruiting

filmmaking a much rosier picture and story of a miner they call reuben and mine was now if what if anything people and devastated their wages with no net send money home to his wife every month and still had been egregiously on the mindsets much as you live in this alternate life that line waiters having that increased dramatically over the last twelve years they'll average wages this past year amounted to about two hundred dollars a month one six of what white miner's name you want to be the film emphasizes the need for better black white relations still various racial violence in the minds and ramaphosa is proud of the way he's union has handled it you're the situation occurred in one mine

were ominous were complaining that the white guys with salt and our advice to them was they should hit that and when they do have that they should have that as hard as they head and if they can't win they should get this is to the vote that i did that that is the white ones and to the violence stops on to give like mine and that strategy worked the strategy of organizing for change is a different proposition in south africa as we found out when we went on an organizing trips with graham oppose it and to union officials they travel as much as twelve hundred miles a week crisscrossing the country three times the size of california is so it's nice

patients by security police so this is being interrogated in these states by a long way than this

david steinmetz a recession this city county state it was early morning when we arrived on the outskirts of the white man in town near the organizing the family next door to its famous than nine kimberly is a very conservative i think on a top they didn't serve the people and their strength and we have a problem about where we recovered but

after driving around for almost an hour passed restaurants that don't serve that we ended up here at this roadside take out on the edge of kimberly this place was a problem because the truth of these loans without conceding but you say it is the kind of problem that fuels their drive for black equality in the mines i immediately is conducted intend to vote and white man iwan says consumers we wouldn't see owen time to take any formal action was to say but against the government now the problem is the government is white and because the government is widely than

slogans will be directed against the white button and the white people on the board the narrative is the wide polls at work so because mining is is the hub of racial discrimination we have to use that strategy to question ties or members the new movement organized them into their lives and having done that yet the region's happened as the group of workmates to learn from the management changes that they want on them and as soon as they realized there

using that our visions and won't say the wider society the type of change that i would like to see taken place in the country let everybody or workers are going to be free and enjoyed the riots that many ordinary person wants to join another my means victories however limited have posted their confidence in rana plaza they are eager to follow him into economic and political battle fields where no other black opposition exists

even mining industry officials acknowledged at rana plaza has built an impressive base disciplined democratic and potentially powerful it is increasingly as we traveled around south africa without people talking about what life would be like post apartheid even offer connors the descendants of the original white settlers in south africa they are responsible for creating and maintaining apartheid for the past thirty seven years afrikaners control south africa's government although they make up only about nine percent of the population to get some insight into this thinking we journeyed thousands of miles down to the eastern cape region from cape town we headed to a small white farming village near the

turbulent black township in the queenie aaron paul we met afrikaner to agree that apartheid is outdated and that political change is in the air and good fellowship afrikaner prescription for how to end the week on this friday night in a small village of carl yawning to his family and friends are carrying on a tradition that goes as far back as the time when their you know ancestors settled here after fleeing religious persecution in your life i think came to south africa in nineteen sixty eight a painful and that's wonderful isn't it still volatile and i'm actually the ninth generation still forming on the sign for you and still having this same fun like this outdoor

barbecues mccullough black the rule in his life in britain they had three children alike many african families living in south africa today in a kind of an easy come i don't think we are my neighbors my friends in the live in fear that we all worried about their attempts those very worried about white's theirs is a violent history at a slight remove feel strongly about transmitting their history to their children and sending them to groups like these four

trackers similar to american scouts only four track for membership is restricted to afrikaners there's exclusivity isn't part of their culture their history is an in this line or a monument to the afrikaners great trek into the interior away from black africans away from british oppression it was there that they fled to set up their own way of life in to defend it at all costs we believe that the alpha god has rights the bottom falls of the country the year for nine day new maven generations six and sixteen fifty two he's got no family abroad he's got nowhere else to go and sort of ungainly and that is the lesson the afrikaner passes on to his children the white traveled africa has

determined that their history lies here here on land like this fun don't lose home it is here that will rule works his land some two hundred acres producing food for export the land as fertile most of the country's wine grapes are grown in this solo we feel this is our soil but because we also feel that this soil in this country's shared by the other people but orr says the others here only the work sometimes turning on other farms as well as three hours a week railey more than twenty supplemented by free housing clothing and sometimes a bonus at the end of the year from generation to generation changes have been slow in coming the fanta name is important in economic sense in the sense that our family live from it it also has

as it is in the sense that it belongs to us for nine what's i think there's that attitude toward ground this fall specifically of change from a whale blood supply and there's no question that in the roost business he employs some twenty two families mostly man sometimes their wives in older children he says he and his workers have a good relationship but there are differences within visit there's a difference in civilization is that there's a difference in education i think that many of their of the population or promotion groups as the western stance because south africa's part of the first law and part of the third world but i don't think that we should force that first world standards people are always on

the tradition that has developed out of that is farmers like who take care of their workers needs wherever they are in fact is more liberal than the local colored minister visited with a complaint at the community center and the roux built for his workers was now being used as a discotheque the minister thought it too frivolous le roux argued that they should be able to make their own decisions on committed journalists there's no doubt that we are just i think there are also a lot of systems at last you are dismantling these debt and a persistent us is ongoing the economic center of the ruse universe last night as much in his farm as here at kw the sixty eight year old wine growers association of south africa the wine industry like many other industries here is suffering because of the general state of the economy and

because of the world of boycotts of the country's product is a sore spot among all sectors in south africa and like businessman all over the country and members of this copper preoccupied with south africa's political and economic future they also worried about sharing power with the country's black majority without numbers white's almost five to wind pushing for change that will ever change that should ensure stability of this year for sharing power in the sense of one man one vote in union accused of using the record and track record of africa where minorities have no jobs mighty about that minorities sunni minority which whites was and how do you feel about the grievances

that non whites have articulated that there's injustice for them in this country and that is just not being addressed a few arguments are think that those teams all being look through but obviously not at the best as those people who feel it should go off in a major effect in this is this is the economic side of it costs money to get all the abundance meanwhile they are no white institutions in south africa not even the church where black people could freely participate as equals most afrikaners it annie le roux and his family belonged to the dutch reformed church the limited city was suffering from using fm we go to church every

sunday june to scientists who's leading the reform law in one scene churches always been racially divided into three levels blacks whites and collards i asked him why that was necessary in the first place that was in may and the times of the nation's next people were no educated people and no civilized had been brought up with the same level of civilization brought up to the same level of education i feel the need for structural differences isn't it but those differences remain there is a raging debate within the dutch reformed church over how to resolve the problem even if people like seem prepared to change these divisions in a church still exist as do the violent divisions in the rest of the

country are not particularly worried that this discussion about tone and our immediate surroundings because i think that people on stanford's other much bitterness in this part of the world bank and says it the people so if people get tubes and only use about a man's life i think is the most important in the world and that should be protected at any price ended it is and so we came to the end of our journey inside south africa the situation is so volatile that we cannot predict what might happen next

what we can say with certainty is that there are no clear lines of communication between the people in the black townships and the people in the white towns everywhere we went people wanted to know what we had seen elsewhere what we had heard and what we thought about it we haven't found people willing to listen to challenges to their basic assumptions face to face but with limits on what they can see on state controlled television and self censorship and other media the whites in particular were extremely isolated from the realities of black life in the townships and as we saw in our story about him too to match shell the whites and blacks are rarely if ever sit down and talk honestly together better communications may not put out the fires that are raging all over south africa but of apartheid's people could get to know each other as we got to know them it might go a long way toward lowering the temperature and charlayne hunter gault

long distance funding also was provided by the station and other public television stations and the corporation for public broadcasting it's b to pay it's b

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