Pod Insights ABC Rewind 05 | Boycott! | The streets are burning About this episode The 1980s see South Africa spin out of control as defiance to apartheid and the regime’s crackdown builds. A cultural boycott of South Africa sees international musicians refuse to play there until Paul Simon controversially records his album Graceland with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The world finally gets to hear the vibrant sounds of Zulu music but at what cost to the anti-apartheid movement?
Transcript 6,371 words · 26 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.
0:07 Speaker 01 It's 1984, and musician Paul Simon is struggling. His marriage has ended, his musical partnership with Art Garfunkel, Simon & Garfunkel, has blown up, and he's floundering in the musical backwaters, trying to revive his career, when someone plays him a bootleg cassette of South African a cappella group, Lady Smith Black Mambazo.
0:30 Speaker 02 People are amazed when they see Black Mambazo, because that group is an extraordinary blend of voices.
0:37 Speaker 01 Paul Simon is blown away. Who wouldn't be? And he thinks, hmm, maybe I should make an album with them. But that means recording with the group in South Africa, which means breaking the cultural boycott against the apartheid regime.
0:55 Speaker 02 I knew that there would be criticism if I went. I was told that by people in South Africa and people in America. But I was still encouraged to go. And the artistic opportunity was so exciting that I went for it. I went for the music.
1:13 Speaker 01 Paul Simon secretly flies to Johannesburg to record with Lady Smith Black Mambazo. They spend long days in the studio. The black musicians anxious when sessions run late. This white guy's gonna get them arrested. You see, they're not allowed to be out in the city past curfew. But many of you will be very familiar with the extraordinary result of this recording session. One of the most influential albums of all time, Graceland. Fellow musician Billy Bragg is not happy.
1:47 Speaker 03 The fact of going there and breaking the boycott, I think that always made Graceland a fundamentally flawed project. He didn't really respect the politics of the situation that he was putting himself into. Was that naivety or was that arrogance? It's difficult to say.
2:03 Speaker 01 The African National Congress, the ANC, blasts Paul Simon. Anti-apartheid activists are furious and a ton of people accuse him of cultural appropriation. If this was now, we'd say Paul Simon is cancelled. But Graceland is a massive hit. It sells 16 million copies and his world tour sells out.
2:27 Speaker 02 I have rethought this Graceland thing endlessly, endlessly. I've been up nights, many nights, thinking, now, is that, did I, did I screw up here? And I, eventually I end up coming up with this conclusion, which is musicians and artists have a duty to be musicians and artists.
2:48 Speaker 01 But what if you break a cultural boycott to fulfill that duty? What if, like Paul Simon, your intentions are good? There are no easy answers. But I will say this. Graceland introduces generations of music lovers to the incredible sounds of South Africa. Ladysmith Black Mambazo's music reaches the world. It touches people. They win a Grammy and Paul Simon forces a spotlight on apartheid. And I can't hate on him for that. But while people in the West are grooving to Graceland, in South Africa, it feels like the violence under the apartheid regime has no end.
3:32 Speaker 04 People are being assassinated, kidnapped. There's a whole government agency of police who are deliberately targeting black activists. They're disappearing them to a farm called Flaplas where they are torturing them and then burning bodies and then having a bribe or a barbecue on a fire that is made on the site where they have killed black people.
4:04 Speaker 01 This is the kind of violence anti-apartheid activists around the world are trying to get governments and global corporations to condemn with sanctions. It's why rugby players and cricketers refused to play South Africa in the 1970s, and why artists like Billy Bragg are saying enough. But as apartheid enters its final, brutal years, and international pressure mounts, the regime doubles down, and the violence ratchets up. Cracks are appearing, pushing people to their limit and forcing them to make tough choices. For many, it feels like it all comes down to this: kill or be killed.
4:47 Speaker 01 How many more lives need to be lost before the West finally cuts economic ties with South Africa? I'm Sisong Kim Simong. On ABC Rewind, this is Boycott: The Fight to End Apartheid. Episode 5: The Streets Are Burning. We all know music has power. And it's in the 1980s when musicians start using it, soundtracking South Africa's bloodiest decade yet. Now, just a heads up, that we're going to be talking about a bunch of songs we can't play you. Why?
5:30 Speaker 01 Insanely steep copyright fees. So you can sing along in your head. The first one is Peter Gabriel's "Biko," the poignant tribute to the leader murdered by the regime, Steve Biko. The song still gives me chills. And then, in 1984, Jerry Dammers of the British ska band The Specials writes "Free Nelson Mandela," and it becomes the anthem of a movement.
5:57 Speaker 03 I think the anti-apartheid movement, certainly in the UK, was hugely supercharged by the release of "Free Nelson Mandela" by The Specials.
6:05 Speaker 01 People on dance floors everywhere are singing and grooving to the infectious tune. My favorite line is still, "Are you so blind that you cannot see?"
6:18 Speaker 01 Musician Billy Bragg remembers it well.
6:21 Speaker 03 Before Free Nelson Mandela, you might have been able to say, I'm not really sure who that guy is and what he's done. But I think after Free Nelson Mandela, he almost became a pop cultural figure in that sense. I mean, protest music, you can dance to, that's always a good thing. You can't really change the world by making records. But there are times when a record somehow comes to bring people together in a way that makes them feel that they do have the power to make a difference. And Free Nelson Mandela is one of those kind of songs.
6:53 Speaker 01 It really is. The song sticks. It's sung at protests, on stages, it's played on the radio. Even now, people of a certain age will absolutely 100% be able to sing you the chorus.
7:11 Speaker 01 British musos lead the way in protesting apartheid. And then they announce a boycott. A huge list of stars pull their albums from South African airwaves and stores and refuse to tour there. Billy Bragg, Bruce Springsteen, The Smiths, The Pogues, Elvis Costello, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, they all join the boycott. And there's heaps of others who do too. But there's a loophole. Artists can get around the boycott by playing at Sun City.
7:48 Speaker 00 This is the place that the far right in South Africa claims is sapping the moral fibre of the nation. It's called Sun City.
7:56 Speaker 01 Sin City, I mean Sun City, is a huge gaudy resort and casino located just a few hours' drive from Johannesburg, in a place called Baputatswana. Don't be embarrassed if you've never heard of Baputatswana. Most people haven't. It doesn't even exist anymore. And to be honest, it only ever existed in the minds of apartheid bureaucrats. But back in the day, it's designated as a homeland, a puppet state created by the South African regime. I'll tell you more about that soon.
8:28 Speaker 01 The important thing to remember for now is that life under apartheid is super puritanical, even for white people. It's Bible-driven, it's kind of boring. But at Sun City, there's gambling, there are R-rated films, topless reviews, golf courses. It's an escape hatch for the rich.
8:47 Speaker 00 So whites come here for the day or for the weekend to lose some money or to watch a mildly titillating film?
8:53 Speaker 01 The thing is, because Baputazwana is a homeland, it isn't technically part of South Africa, so it gives an out to big-name musicians willing to use this loophole to bypass the boycott. And I hate to break it to you, but some of your faves might be on this list. Frank Sinatra, Elton John, Dolly Parton, Queen, Rod Stewart, Liza Minnelli, Linda Ronstadt, Cher, The Beach Boys, even our own girl next door, Olivia Newton-John.
9:30 Speaker 01 Playing in Baputazwana and pretending you're not playing in South Africa is a total cop-out. But money talks, and they are paid big money, like $2 million in the 80s kind of big money.
9:44 Speaker 03 The usual justification for those bands were that they were going down there and playing to black audiences and trying to reconnect apartheid South Africa with the rest of the world. That doesn't really fly, that, as far as I'm concerned.
9:56 Speaker 01 In 1985, Artists United Against Apartheid hit back with the song "Sun City." I loved that song so much as a kid. It had so many big names on it: Ringo Starr, Lou Reed, Miles Davis, Run DMC, Billy Bragg, even our own Peter Garrett. They all sing on it. It's kind of like a Band-Aid "Feed the World" tune, but with way more hardcore politics.
10:27 Speaker 01 What all this underlines is that music plays a critical role in the boycott movement. And it's no accident that so much of it revolves around Sun City. Don't worry, I won't sing again. But Sun City is a crucial part of this story. If you want to understand the horrendous violence of 1980s South Africa and how everything went so terribly wrong, you need to understand the whole idea behind homelands and the role they played in the twisted concept of apartheid.
10:59 Speaker 01 Remember that analogy from last episode? That apartheid is like a pint of Guinness? Picture it. A little bit of white at the top, that's the minority. The majority, the black, Indian and so-called colored people on the bottom. That's South Africa in a nutshell. You can't have black and white people mixing. And you can't have different black groups mixing either. Not Zulu and Bedi, not Shangane and Khosza. Everyone apart, apartheid. The government presents homelands as a great way to preserve language and culture. But they're actually a way of keeping black people separated from one another, pitting black groups against each other.
11:43 Speaker 01 Dr. Shereen Hasim is a professor of political studies at Carleton University in Canada. But she grew up in South Africa.
11:50 Speaker 04 This is one form of divide and rule. This is a counter to Steve Biko's notion of black unity because it was saying, actually, you're not really black, you're Zulu. And you should have your own homeland where you can pursue your own policies as you like. But it is on terms designated by the white state. And it is anticipated that those homeland leaders will contain or control resistance themselves. So here you see the beginnings of what will later come to be called black-on-black violence.
12:32 Speaker 01 It's violence that's flat-out manufactured by the apartheid regime to defuse black resistance to apartheid.
12:40 Speaker 01 The most powerful, best funded and most complicated of these homelands is Gwazulu on the east coast. It's home to millions of Zulu people, South Africa's largest ethnic group. The Zulu Kingdom has a long, proud pre-colonial history and its leader is Chief Mangasutu Buthelezi.
12:58 Speaker 05 Chief Buthelezi's Zulu swept into Clermont Township today for a traditional tribute to their nation's founder and an equally traditional show of force.
13:11 Speaker 04 Mangasutu Buthelezi came from a family that traditionally played the role of advisor to the king. He decides to revive a cultural movement that had been initially traditions and Zulu people's connection to the royal family.
13:32 Speaker 01 Buthelezi calls this cultural movement Inkatha. But because Inkatha is funded by the apartheid government and doesn't support sanctions, the movement's politically opposed to the ANC and to the United Democratic Front, the UDF. That's the coalition of unions, churches and community groups that you heard about in the last episode. Bishop Desmond Tutu is one of its leaders. Soon enough, Inkatha becomes a quasi-militia.
14:01 Speaker 05 This hereditary Zulu leader stands defiantly now in a no man's land between government and ANC.
14:09 Speaker 06 We were not cowards. If destiny calls upon us tomorrow to fight and die, we will do so. Husum. Husum. We will not be turned into political slaves, isn't it so?
14:23 Speaker 04 The Inkatha movement is vicious.
14:25 Speaker 01 Inkatha is extremely conservative and it sees the UDF and the ANC as a threat. Why? Because they support liberal values like women's rights and, you know, democracy. If apartheid ever ends and the ANC comes to power, Buthelezi worries that the homelands would be eradicated and Buthelezi and Inkatha would lose their power, so they dig in. These tensions suit the South African government very well. The government secretly supplies Inkatha with guns, machetes and logistical support and helps it spread anti-Anc propaganda.
15:07 Speaker 01 And soon enough, the country is engulfed in a terrifying killing campaign. Inkatha, targeting UDF activists and their communities.
15:20 Speaker 05 The firepower against the comrades is too much. Time after time, they're forced to flee.
15:28 Speaker 05 They're pushed deeper and deeper into fringe encampments. There to be hunted down in warfare that throughout the day gets steadily worse and ever more vicious.
15:40 Speaker 04 This is the context in which I'm living in Durban. Young black men, families that are UDF, send away their sons to sleep in the bush. Because at night, Inkatha will attack them. And in order to keep the family safe, these young kids, 16, 17, are sleeping in the bush.
16:07 Speaker 01 It's an awful time. The Inkatha violence spreads to Johannesburg, and South Africa's biggest and most vibrant township, Soweto, becomes a battleground.
16:21 Speaker 01 Police, activists, Inkatha, all fighting. In the middle of it all stands Winnie Mandela. It's impossible to tell the story of the resistance movement against apartheid without talking about Winnie.
16:37 Speaker 06 My husband has been fighting for the liberation of the African people, for the working harmoniously of all the racial groups in this country.
16:45 Speaker 01 Winnie is Nelson Mandela's wife, but she's so much more. She's the first black medical social worker in South Africa. She's an activist, a political detainee, a militant. I could go on and on. In fact, I find her so fascinating, I wrote her biography. And Shereen Hasim has written a lot about her too.
17:08 Speaker 04 She was a very feisty, and a very ambitious, and a very smart young woman from the eastern Cape, with a very independent spirit. Came into the city of Johannesburg to train to be a social worker, and then got thrust into the politics.
17:31 Speaker 01 Winnie's only 22 when Nelson spies her standing at a bus stop and turns on his legendary charm.
17:39 Speaker 04 He's Nelson Mandela. Why wouldn't every beautiful young woman want to be with him? It's the Obamas of the 50s. It's the Obamas of the 50s and the 60s and 70s.
17:49 Speaker 01 Long story short, Winnie Madigizela and Nelson Mandela marry in 1958 and have two daughters. But just four years later, Nelson is sentenced to life in prison on Robben Island. Winnie is left, literally and figuratively, holding the baby. Two babies, actually. Their beautiful daughters, Zinzi and Zinani. With the spotlight now on her, Winnie becomes known as the mother of the nation.
18:18 Speaker 07 I know the pain of my people's suffering. I know I am bleeding inside all the time. But that hasn't brutalized me to an extent of being consumed in hate.
18:36 Speaker 01 But she's not the shrinking violet kind of mother. Winnie is ferocious in her love. And she's defiant. Her fearlessness gets her in trouble repeatedly. She's detained and tortured. And in 1977, the regime banishes her to a remote township called Branford for eight years. Then, in 1985, Winnie returns to a burning Soweto.
19:06 Speaker 07 It's like a war zone. You have seen the army and the police completely blocking off several streets and completely surrounding those people. There are helicopters circling in the air.
19:21 Speaker 07 It's like a war zone.
19:22 Speaker 01 And Winnie Mandela is ever-present in that war zone. She's been banned by the government, but she's still at every protest, every funeral, seemingly fearless.
19:36 Speaker 05 13 blacks died when the police dispersed what people here maintain was a peaceful demonstration. Their mass funeral today drew more than 30,000 people. Winnie Mandela, wife of the jailed leader of the AMC, appeared in the cemetery. She herself is banned and was breaking the law just by being here.
19:55 Speaker 06 I bring you messages of love from our leaders inside prisons.
20:03 Speaker 06 I bring you deep sympathy. The solution to this country's problems lies in these black hands.
20:18 Speaker 01 Tens of thousands of people are being arrested and killed. Tanks are patrolling the townships.
20:24 Speaker 04 The troops are in the tanks. They have guns and the young children pick up stones and start to pelt the tanks, right? What are the mothers doing? They are not being conservative mothers saying, "Back into the house with you." They are standing there with their big skirts that hold the stones. They're holding the stones, right?
20:50 Speaker 01 The courage of these kids meeting soldiers with their tiny rocks is incredible, as is the resolve of their mothers. But that's not the story the apartheid state is telling the world. Kids against tanks, nope. Instead, the regime uses this term, a term many of us come to hate: black-on-black violence. And it serves a clear purpose for the government.
21:16 Speaker 04 It's a way of making black seem to be an irrational force. And it goes out across the world as propaganda to keep the white government in power and to try and get support for it, which of course it does get from the United States. It gets from Margaret Thatcher's government.
21:36 Speaker 01 The term "black-on-black violence" centers black people when it's actually white violence at the heart of this chaos. A small number of the activists being targeted by INKATA and the security forces are turning their rage against people they suspect are informers or collaborators with the apartheid regime.
21:57 Speaker 08 A black policeman who consciously holds a gun and shoots another black person is bound to face the wrath of our people.
22:07 Speaker 08 The black businessman who runs a store down the street and exploits our people, charging them high prices, will have to face the wrath of our people in the end.
22:18 Speaker 01 One of the most vicious methods of exacting revenge against collaborators is called "necklacing." And a warning: this description is graphic.
22:28 Speaker 05 The latest victim of the necklace died this weekend. A petrol-soaked tyre was put around her neck and set alight. Death by the necklace, reserved for so-called collaborators.
22:39 Speaker 01 Necklacing becomes a symbol of uncontrollable anger and violence. On the other side of the world from this horror, our little family is still living in exile, in Canada, watching all this unfold on the TV. Baba, my dad, is back and forward to the Congo and Ethiopia, working for a humanitarian organisation. Baba's still an active member of the ANC, but his days of armed guerrilla warfare are over now. He's a family man. The ANC's military wing, Um Konto Wessizwe, or MK, is still very much active, and while
23:20 Speaker 01 they never target civilians, they're using violence to sabotage the regime by bombing infrastructure. Then, in late 1985, the South African Defence Forces enter Lesotho, a sovereign country, and they kill six members of MK. This changes everything for the ANC. Just before Christmas, they carry out a deadly attack.
23:46 Speaker 09 South Africa has vowed to avenge the deaths of seven whites killed in a bomb blast at a holiday resort near Durban, an attack it blames on black guerrillas of the African National Congress.
23:58 Speaker 05 The bomb went off in a shopping centre crowded with tourists at the busiest time of the morning. It had been planted next to an ice cream stall that was a focal point for children. Three people were killed on the spot, two of them were children. This was the latest in a series of bombs in this area, and by far the worst.
24:25 Speaker 01 This bombing puts the South African government on notice. The ANC in exile has developed well-organized structures and policies. It's preparing to govern South Africa one day. And the Durban bombings made life tough for the ANC's representatives located all over the world, de facto ambassadors if you like. In 1983, it had even set up an office in Australia and sent a young man called Eddie Funde to run it. Eddie's been trying to convince Australians that the ANC is the legitimate government in waiting.
25:00 Speaker 10 Welcome to the National Press Club, ladies and gentlemen, where we are very pleased today to welcome Eddie Funde.
25:04 Speaker 11 Thank you, Mr. President. My task here today is to enlighten you a bit about the background to the history of the colonization of the people of South Africa.
25:19 Speaker 01 But Eddie is up against it, as he works at convincing Australians that the ANC are freedom fighters, not terrorists. Journalists repeatedly ask him why the ANC uses guerrilla warfare to fight apartheid. And I know exactly how he feels. As kids in Swaziland and Zambia, my sisters and I were often called "little gorillas" or "baby terrorists" by unkind neighbors and grown-ups. Their governments supported the ANC being in their country, but people got tired of the danger that accompanied our presence. In 1987, the president of the ANC, Oliver Tambo, visits Australia, and he also has to defend the organization's use of violence.
26:04 Speaker 11 They are the violent ones. We are reactive to their violence. It's wrong to ask us, the victims of the crime, to stop defending ourselves.
26:16 Speaker 01 Oliver Tambo speaks to packed audiences across the country. But his visit also attracts the attention of the far-right. At a cathedral in Perth, his speech is cut short by a bomb threat.
26:30 Speaker 01 Darren McDonald's an anti-apartheid activist.
26:32 Speaker 12 There was genuine and real danger still for any one ANC representative anywhere in the world. There were frequent death threats and bomb threats, for example, at the ANC office in the Trades Hall. There would be demonstrators in the streets of Sydney who were pro-apartheid, anti-ANC demonstrators.
26:55 Speaker 01 I never even thought about that. It never occurred to me that there would be pro-apartheid protesters.
27:00 Speaker 12 And they would be there and they would have effigies of black people with burning tyres around their necks.
27:07 Speaker 01 Australian pro-apartheid protesters are mocking the terrifying and violent act of necklacing.
27:14 Speaker 13 The evening started calmly enough as people gathered at the cathedral. The temper soon fled when a small group of protesters arrived wearing tyre necklaces.
27:22 Speaker 01 The year before, Australia's Young Liberals had sent a delegation to South Africa. It had come home solidly supporting white minority rule. And now, the far-right's backing the Young Liberals on the street. Not long after this protest, this happens in Sydney.
27:42 Speaker 14 The violence of the politics of apartheid visited Australian soil at the weekend with a shotgun attack on the Sydney home of the African National Congress's Eddie Fundy.
27:51 Speaker 11 Just as I entered the kitchen, I had two loud bangs and I had a car scratch away and on two doors there had been shots fired which went through the door, knocked the wall and went about 10 metres across the corridor, through another door. Had any of those shots got me, I think there had been serious damage and it could have been fatal.
28:14 Speaker 14 Who do you believe might be behind these attacks?
28:17 Speaker 11 Well, whoever it is, I think it's got some, definitely has connections with the South African racist regime.
28:25 Speaker 01 Turns out, it's the head of the white supremacist group National Action, Jim Salim, who ordered the attack, and he ends up in jail. Eddie's name is added to the long list of anti-apartheid activists attacked throughout the 80s. He's lucky, but many aren't.
28:43 Speaker 01 In 1982, white academic and ANC member Ruth First was killed opening a letter bomb sent by the regime to her office in Mozambique. In 1984, Jeanette Shun and her six-year-old daughter Katrin had been killed in Angola, also by a letter bomb. The ANC office in Stockholm is bombed while my Aunt Lindy Wembabuza is there. Luckily, no one's hurt. And a few years later in Paris, the ANC's rep Dulce September will be assassinated outside her office. The impunity of the South African regime seems to know no bounds.
29:29 Speaker 01 As this bloody decade grinds on, it's blindingly obvious that ordinary people with their sports and cultural boycotts will not bring down apartheid on their own. It cannot end without the financial muscle of global superpowers and economic sanctions. But here's the thing. Many African countries are newly independent from their former colonial masters. Their struggles have been supported by the Soviet Union, which promotes communism. And so they now have communist or socialist governments. The West, which supports capitalism and free markets, is worried about all these communist African countries springing up, and it sees South Africa as an island of sanity that can
30:14 Speaker 01 stop the spread of communism. Remember, it's the Cold War: capitalism versus communism. The US and the UK support South Africa's war against its communist neighbors, and they can't exactly pay for South Africa's tanks and bombs and impose sanctions. Israel, by the way, is also selling arms to South Africa and is helping the regime to build a nuclear bomb. It's a mess, which means former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who's working behind the scenes for a solution, has his work cut out for him.
30:50 Speaker 15 The Western world ought to apply vigorous and substantive sanctions against South Africa.
30:56 Speaker 01 Malcolm Fraser has been against apartheid for years. He's a conservative, but an old-school liberal, and he hates racism. He's also a big believer in the Commonwealth, which is kind of like the United Nations, but for former British colonies. It's the toothless tiger, though. And Fraser wants to give it the teeth to fight apartheid through sanctions. Its collective power could really hurt South Africa. The Hulk Labour government is strongly pushing for global sanctions, and it appoints Fraser to a new Commonwealth working group to end apartheid. Fraser makes several trips to South Africa with his co-chair, the man who'll go on to become Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo. Margaret Simons is Malcolm Fraser's biographer.
31:42 Speaker 16 Fraser said at the time, "We have to have superglue on our bottoms because we're going to hear a lot of things that we don't like, but we must continue to sit down and must continue to talk."
31:51 Speaker 01 On one trip to South Africa, they become the first foreigners allowed to visit Nelson Mandela.
31:57 Speaker 16 The first question Mandela asked Fraser was whether Donald Bradman was still alive. And Fraser was very glad to tell him that indeed he was. So they asked Mandela about his political affiliations, whether he was a communist, and Mandela said he wasn't. And they asked him about violence, because the ANC had not renounced violence. And Mandela indicated that while he couldn't speak for his colleagues in the ANC, because he'd been isolated from them for all the years he'd been in jail, that he personally was prepared to pause violence or put violence to one's side if it was part of sensible negotiations.
32:36 Speaker 16 Mandela impressed the entire group by his dignity and his intellect, and also his lack of bitterness.
32:42 Speaker 01 Let me just say, I have a lot of thoughts about how so many people construct Mandela as a moderate, safe, good black. In any case, Fraser and Obasanjo are also supposed to speak with anti-apartheid dissidents. But South African security forces surround the hotel where the meeting is supposed to take place, and so the activists cancel.
33:04 Speaker 16 They both were furious about it. The two of them went for a walk and came to a beach, which was decorated with signs saying "whites only."
33:14 Speaker 16 So there was Fraser unable to walk on this beach without leaving his companion aside. They had agreed previously not to be provocative and to continue to negotiate quietly and calmly, but they were both very angry on this day. Unusually, they both stepped onto that beach and walked on it together. There were journalists there who took their photo and it became one of the iconic images of the effort.
33:36 Speaker 01 Fraser and Obasanjo keep building the case for economic sanctions against South Africa. But they know, in order for the sanctions to really hurt, they need the support of the two biggest Western superpowers, the UK and the US. UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is not on board. And neither is US President Ronald Reagan. They are in lockstep. In 1986, there's a bitter debate within the Commonwealth over sanctions. Forty-eight out of forty-nine members vote yes to sanctions. Britain is isolated. Even the Queen disagrees with Thatcher.
34:19 Speaker 17 Thatcher would not bend. She clung to the position that sanctions would be immoral, hurting the blacks more than the white government of South Africa.
34:28 Speaker 18 Getting rid of apartheid would not be helped by from a comfortable luncheon in a five-star hotel, deciding that there should be poverty and starvation on the part of a large number of black people because we would choose to impose comprehensive sanctions.
34:46 Speaker 01 But in 1986, Margaret Thatcher finally agrees to some very limited sanctions. Unfortunately, they're voluntary and practically useless. In the US, President Reagan vetoes a bill for sanctions passed by Congress. But Malcolm Fraser and Olusigan Obasanjo have been supporting local activists by lobbying hard, and they pull off a miracle. For the first time in US history, the Senate overturns a presidential veto.
35:19 Speaker 01 US sanctions aren't enforced for another three years, but still, it's a huge win. The South African government knows that its economy is frankly screwed. Gareth Evans is a minister in Australia's Labor government at the time.
35:34 Speaker 19 It was the financial sanctions that were the real killer. They could fight off everything else, but it was just having a strangling effect on the whole economy. And it was just impossible for them to sustain their isolation. The important point to make is that the Australian government was sent up front in terms of really keeping the pressure on, not only through the Commonwealth, but through our activity in promoting more broadly internationally the kind of critical financial sanction strategy that finally brought the government down.
36:05 Speaker 01 Change is finally on its way.
36:17 Speaker 01 But on the ground in South Africa, it doesn't feel like anything's about to change. The late 80s are some of the bloodiest years yet, and the relentless violence is fraying communities. The police and Inkatha are making life miserable for everyone. And unsurprisingly, Winnie Mandela is right in the thick of it, the Pied Piper of the disaffected. Shereen Haseem.
36:45 Speaker 04 Winnie places herself on the side of the comrades firmly, and she becomes a figure of leadership for them. It's a moment where ANC in exile, but also the internal political resistance is becoming anxious about what will happen to the violence, where it will take us.
37:09 Speaker 01 Momentum is gathering for sanctions outside the country. But in South Africa, all that seems to be gathering is rage. The country is very angry.
37:21 Speaker 06 One can foresee ugly times ahead of us. The country is building up towards some kind of climax. The government itself is sowing the seeds of the worst revolution mankind will see.
37:37 Speaker 01 As a national state of emergency looms and so-called black-on-black violence escalates, Winnie surrounds herself with an angry and violent group of young men who call themselves the Mandela United Football Club.
37:51 Speaker 04 What Winnie is doing is developing her own vigilante group. It is her own private little group that seems to be unconstrained. It is doing its own thing in Soweto, and people in Soweto are not happy.
38:07 Speaker 01 Let's just say that the football club doesn't play a lot of football. But after years of hounding by the government and Inkatha, Winnie feels she needs the protection. And the atmosphere in Soweto is getting more intense as informers report activists to the police and as activists retaliate against informers. And increasingly gruesome tactics are used to mete out street justice. In the midst of all this, Winnie makes a shocking call to arms.
38:39 Speaker 06 This is now the right time to take your country. We have no arms. We have stones. We have boxes of matches. With our necklaces, we shall liberate this country. Ready, set, go!
38:57 Speaker 01 With our necklaces, we shall liberate this country. Yes, Winnie Mandela is talking here about necklacing. The ANC has lost control of the mother of the nation. Winnie is called to order by the leaders of the ANC and the UDF, elders like Bishop Tutu, who despise violence. And her imprisoned husband Nelson Mandela is informed. But Winnie is defiant.
39:30 Speaker 04 She becomes a bit of a law unto herself. Because she really does want radical change. And she really does think that the more careful tactics are getting us nowhere. And she does think, as do many young revolutionaries, that violence is an alternative here. We can use violence. We can have a violent overthrow.
39:54 Speaker 01 All through Nelson Mandela's long years in prison, Winnie's been the face on the ground. The one walking the streets, attending the funerals, the one providing hope. But by endorsing necklacing and surrounding herself with the football club, many people think she's gone too far. And the community turns against her. They burn down her house in Soweto.
40:18 Speaker 04 Because the Mandela United Football Club is terrorizing their children and terrorizing people for reasons that are not entirely clear. Like, they can just decide someone's an informer. They can beat you to death. And people don't want that. They want Winnie to take control.
40:37 Speaker 01 But Winnie doesn't seem to want to.
40:40 Speaker 20 For the first time on the streets of Johannesburg, graffiti attacking Winnie Mandela, whose fortunes suffered another blow today with the news that two more young blacks are missing. They were last seen with the so-called Mandela United Football Club. Mrs. Mandela's young bodyguards who've been accused of abduction, assault, and possible murder.
41:00 Speaker 01 This is the final straw. And it's devastating for the entire resistance movement.
41:05 Speaker 21 Mrs. Mandela has abused the trust and confidence which she has enjoyed over the years.
41:15 Speaker 20 Tonight, then, the woman once looked up to as the mother of the nation is a political outcast.
41:23 Speaker 01 Just as it seems the violence cannot get any worse, in 1989, a shift.
41:31 Speaker 01 A key player on the apartheid stage, South Africa's hardcore repressive president, P W Botha, has a stroke and is forced to resign. He is replaced by F W de Klerk, 20 years his junior and far more pragmatic. De Klerk's already been talking with the ANC in exile. Like other Afrikaners of his generation, he's read the writing on the wall.
41:55 Speaker 22 Only three months ago, black protesters on whites-only beaches in the Cape were beaten off by police with whips and dogs. Today, President de Klerk announced the law allowing segregated beaches, swimming pools, parks, and other amenities will be scrapped. And Mr. de Klerk went further than ever before, insisting white minority rule itself must end.
42:17 Speaker 23 To cling to power for the white population group means facing a revolution.
42:27 Speaker 01 Revolution is in the air around the world. Just months after de Klerk becomes president, the Berlin Wall falls. Communism begins to crumble. The Soviet Union implodes, and they no longer have the time or money to support communism in Africa. And with no USSR to fight, America doesn't have a stake in supporting South Africa. And at the same time, those economic sanctions imposed by the US are finally starting to bite. It's a house of cards, and apartheid is about to collapse. On February 2nd, 1990, President de Klerk makes a stunning announcement.
43:13 Speaker 22 The most significant of President de Klerk's announcements, the lifting of the 30-year-old ban on the ANC and other proscribed groups, including the communists, all of them reviled and demonized by the white minority for decades.
43:27 Speaker 23 Prohibition of the African National Congress, the Pan-Africanist Congress, the South African Communist Party, and a number of subsidiary organizations is being rescinded.
43:36 Speaker 01 The ANC, PAC, Communist Party, all the groups fighting for our rights, have been unbound. The police will no longer be allowed to raid your home simply for having a pamphlet about Nelson Mandela or Karl Marx.
43:52 Speaker 23 I call on the international community to re-evaluate its position and to adopt a positive attitude towards the dynamic evolution which is taking place in South Africa.
44:05 Speaker 01 The sanctions, the boycotts, the songs, the sports demos, they have all worked. The edifice of white minority rule in South Africa has finally cracked. And it happens in the most undramatic way, with a boring parliamentary speech.
44:24 Speaker 04 When the ANC was unbanned, it was actually really the biggest moment for me. That February 2nd, 1990, that day, when we had that, I was still in Durban, had the biggest party the city had ever seen. We just cried and danced. That was amazing.
44:50 Speaker 01 And now that the political parties are unbanned, soon, one of the greatest love stories of our time can be resumed.
44:57 Speaker 22 After 27 years visiting Nelson Mandela in prison, today, unusually, his wife Winnie looked happy as she came out, herself convinced the ANC leader will finally be freed and soon. Mrs Mandela didn't want to speculate exactly when her 71-year-old husband might be freed.
45:14 Speaker 06 It is difficult to say, but I don't think we are talking about months now anymore.
45:18 Speaker 22 Now that President de Klerk has himself publicly committed to ending white minority rule, he has no choice but to free Nelson Mandela.
45:27 Speaker 01 Winnie and Nelson, the mother and father of our nation, will finally be reunited, and South Africa might soon be free.
45:47 Speaker 01 Next time on Boycott, Mandela walks out of prison a free man, holding hands with his beloved Winnie. But it doesn't take long before mum and dad are fighting. Talks to end apartheid begin.
46:10 Speaker 24 What they're doing here now is taking away everything that belongs to the white and what we've worked for and established by our own intellect, just hand over to a black government. We are going to resist, that is for sure.
46:22 Speaker 01 But then, the violence ratchets up.
46:24 Speaker 25 People were killed in the trains, in the funerals, in the hostels. Wow.
46:32 Speaker 01 A nation is pushed to the brink. Will South Africa cross the finish line, ending its long walk to freedom? I'm Sisongem Simong, and this has been an ABC Rewind production for Radio National.
46:53 Speaker 22 You've been listening to an ABC Podcast. Discover more great ABC podcasts, live radio and exclusives on the ABC Listen app.
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