#AftertheSunset

So I went to this cool film screening this past Tuesday hosted at Radar Advertising Agency in Cape Town.  The organisers, Tiisestso Molobi and Mangaliso Sobukwe, decided to give the screening the apt title “After the Sunset.”  We were also lucky enough to have a conversation after the screening hosted by Dr Olusengun Morakinyo with Mme Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge as the honoured guest.  The film on show was a two and a half hour documentary, “Death of Apartheid.”

A few things struck me as interesting as I was watching the film:

1.    The people who ran South Africa during apartheid were nationalists, as are those who run it currently.  I’m not sure what that means, but I find it ironic. 

2.    P. W. Botha was removed from office in a similar manner to Ntate Thabo Mbeki.  Not only that, it would seem the African National Congress functioned or functions the same way the then National Party did.  The decision to oust Botha was a unanimous one, by what I figure is their national executive committee.

3.    The way the previous government used state agencies to gain political advantage is not different from how the current government is said to.  Well, that’s according to certain media reports and political opponents anyhow. 

4.    I began to realise how many documentaries of this ilk speak to the secret negotiations that Ntate Nelson Mandela held with the apartheid government.  Of all these documentaries, all negotiations have been detailed, we know, to some extent, what was discussed, but I have not heard or seen a documentary that details what was discussed between Ntate Mandela and the government of Pieter Willem Botha. 

5.    Which brings me to my next point, all the glory has been given to De Klerk, when it is thus obvious the discussions began under the leadership of Botha.  In essence, Botha did the hard work and De Klerk took the glory. 

6.    The governments use of the media, particularly the South African Broadcasting Corporation.  Watching press conference and other clips, the only difference I saw was that the people were white Afrikaans men, whereas these days it is black men…yes, men. 

So what?  There really isn’t much information here.  Well, quite simply, not much has changed.  In terms of politics and how the state is run.  It brings to mind Frantz Omar Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.  On the opening page (119) of the third chapter ‘The Pitfalls of National Consciousness’ he writes,

“National consciousness, instead of being the all-embracing crystallization of the innermost hopes of the whole people, instead of being the immediate and most obvious result of the mobilization of the people, will be in any case only an empty shell, a crude and fragile travesty of what it might have been.”

Keep your eyes and ears open, both to not miss the truth of the past and the present, also to hear when the next screening will be.  The plan is to run them monthly, check Thabiso wa ga Nkoana on Facebook or @thabisonkoana on twitter for more details.  One heart good people…

#Wordsmith