Free Nelson Mandela (2026) s01e01 Episode Script
White Supremacy
1
ARCHIVE: Nelson Mandela, leading
member of African National Congress,
was accused of plotting sabotage
to overthrow the South African
government by force.
It was in the air that we
were going to be executed.
A remarkable demonstration by
a crowd of several hundred
outside the courthouse in Pretoria.
NELSON MANDELA, SPEAKING IN COURT:
I have cherished the ideal
of a democratic and free society.
GUNSHOTS
It is an ideal for which I hope to live for
and to see realised.
But my Lord, if it needs be,
EXPLOSION
it is an ideal
for which I am prepared
to die.
How many leaders have
that magnetism?
The Africans, they want
political independence.
Only Mandela.
We are fighting for a South Africa
which can only be led by him.
All over the world
couldn't rest, we had to
get him out!
CROWD CHANTING
They've got no education.
They've only just come
down from the trees.
The alternative is bloodshed.
The alternative is murder.
I will have nothing to do
with any organisation
that practices violence.
You know that this can never,
has never
and will never be right.
Free ♪
Nelson Mandela ♪.
It was a global struggle against
blatant racism and oppression.
Social movements
can change the world
and music can have
that political power.
Free ♪
Nelson Mandela. ♪
We are here to celebrate Nelson
Mandela's birthday.
- All right!
- CROWD CHEERING
You must free him.
And in freeing him, you free
the people of South Africa.
Free ♪
Nelson Mandela ♪.
VOICE OF NELSON MANDELA:
To me as a child, the Transkei
was the centre of the entire world.
My father was the chief.
He belonged to the Royal House
of Thembu.
There was a great
deal of legend around it.
My dad's name really is not Nelson.
He's called Rolihlahla.
It's only when he went to school
and the white teacher
couldn't pronounce Rolihlahla,
that he was given the name Nelson.
Rolihlahla means one who
is brave enough
to challenge the status quo.
It was a real experience,
my coming to Johannesburg.
Then I became more sharply
aware of racism,
and then the feeling
of bitterness developed.
MAKAZIWE MANDELA, DAUGHTER:
When he saw the dark living conditions
and horrible conditions
of black people
who were treated as slaves
actually, he became conscious.
The government denied us basic
human rights.
And they were very crude about it.
ARCHIVE: The clash of black
and white.
The South African government's
answer to the problem
is summed up in one word
apartheid, The segregation of
European from African.
What would you say is the purpose
of all this legislation?
To Produce complete separation
between whites and blacks,
except in the relationship
of master and servant.
BAREND DU PLESSIS, MINISTER:
The National Party was the party that
would protect us
through legislation or other means,
whatever necessary,
in terms of our culture
and our way of life.
The native, of course, is a man,
more of a child and has to be
treated as such.
When you say treated
to such, what does that mean?
Well, he hasn't our standard
of intelligence.
And when you ask him to do a thing
or tell him to do a thing,
you must be firm.
BARBARA MASEKELA
In 1948, when I was growing up,
CLOSE ADVISER TO NELSON MANDELA:
the nationalist government came in
that introduced apartheid.
We saw people being forcibly moved.
We saw people getting arrested.
We knew that the apartheid
government were violent
and that they killed black people.
NELSON MANDELA: I despise
them, they were full of evil.
But you can't fight discrimination
as an individual.
You need an organisation.
And that's why I joined
the African National Congress.
DALI TAMBO: Nelson Mandela
and my father, Oliver Tambo
they were like brothers.
They had gone to
Johannesburg together,
they had started a law
partnership together.
He was already, what my father used
to call,
a born mass leader.
But they got to a point
where it became clear
that the only way to advance
their people
was not through going to court
and arguing against racist judges.
It was to be engaged in struggle.
From the very beginning, the African
National Congress
has fought without hesitation
against all forms
of racial discrimination,
and we shall continue to do
so until freedom is achieved.
MIRIAM MAKEBA:
"Mayibuye"
"Mayibuye" is another South
African song.
It comes from the townships,
locations, reservations, whichever.
And it's simply a plea to
all southern Africans
to come together, share
their problems.
BARBARA MASEKELA:
We knew about Mandela
because the ANC would come
and speak
and we would say, "Mayibuye Africa,"
which is "come back Africa."
And that was the big slogan,
"Mayibuye."
And all of us would say, "Africa."
Africa ♪
Mayibuye ♪
Music is very important
in the consciousness of
the people of South Africa.
Vuka Mandela noSisulu ♪
Sobukwe nawe Luthuli ♪.
Miriam was a great star,
you know, I knew her through
my brother.
Hugh was also a great
South African musician.
She recognised that with a song,
you know, you could tell
a bigger story.
And it changed, you know,
the whole
way in which people
fought injustice.
Vuka Mandela noSisulu♪
We have been brought up in the
tradition of non-violence
and peaceful struggle.
But the government took advantage
of our commitment.
ARCHIVE: Demonstrations against
the South African government's
strict apartheid policies flare
into shocking violence.
SCREAMING CROWD
SOMBRE TONES
♪
ARCHIVE: More than 60 Africans,
including women and children,
were killed and more than
170 were injured
when the police opened fire on
a crowd estimated at 20,000.
Now, if the government doesn't give
you the kind of concessions
that you want sometime soon
is there any likelihood
of violence?
There are many people who feel
that it is useless
and futile for us to continue
talking peace
and non-violence against
a government,
whose reply is only savage attacks.
I think the time has come
for us to consider
whether the methods which we have
applied so far are adequate.
The government closed all channels
of communication.
The instruction came from
the leadership
that I must go underground
and organise resistance against
the government.
We realised that we either
had to capitulate
or to stand up and fight
EXPLOSION
and we chose the latter.
I went underground in April 1961.
I had five children, three from
my first wife,
two from my second wife.
I wanted to remain with my wife
and my family
but I couldn't.
It was necessary for the party.
WINNIE MANDELA: I remember
years ago when we got married,
my father said to me,
I must remember
that I am marrying
a struggle and not the man.
BARBARA MASEKELA: He adored her.
He loved his wife
he loved Winnie.
And of course they suffered,
you know.
Um, but the whole country
was suffering.
I believe that the white race
in this country
should be preserved and not
be swallowed up
by a race which is in a lesser
state of development.
I was underground.
I trained
in Ethiopia and Algeria.
I visited a number of states
to ask for support.
When I returned from abroad,
I wanted to report to the ANC
that I was back.
And I suspect that I had ignored
the security.
That was really the mistake.
I was caught.
DU PLESSIS: Mr Mandela was known
as a terrorist.
That is how he was portrayed
after committing themselves
to violent acts in order to secure
their political rights.
So it is good that they remove these
people from the streets.
ARCHIVE: The accused are
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela,
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu.
ABDUL MINTY: When they were arrested,
we were worried that
they would be sentenced to death.
ARCHIVE: Nelson Mandela, leader and
founder of the sabotage
movement spear of the nation
and a leading
member of African National Congress,
was accused with the others
of plotting sabotage
to overthrow the South African
government by force.
MINTY: So sabotage carried
the death penalty.
We knew that the South African
government wanted to execute them.
So we ran a campaign to stop
the executions.
When I was in Britain, I was working
with the anti-apartheid movement.
We organised many campaigns,
the boycott campaigns,
by our petitions,
our demonstrations, our resolutions.
We got the British government,
many other governments to demand
that they not be executed
because they are national leaders.
They are needed for the future.
CROWD SINGING "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" ♪
ARCHIVE: Outside the High Court in
Pretoria, sympathisers wait
for the verdict on black leader,
Nelson Mandela.
They knew what the consequences
are going to be for them.
They were going to kill them.
That was their intention.
JUDGE DE WET: Giving the matter
very serious consideration,
I have decided not to impose
a supreme penalty.
The sentence in the case
of all the accused
will be one of life imprisonment.
ARCHIVE: At the back
entrance to the Pretoria court,
large crowds gather to watch
the accused being driven away
to start their life sentences.
WINNIE MANDELA:
Part of my soul did go with him.
ZENANI MANDELA: When my father
went to prison, I was two years old.
What troubled me the most
is would I ever see my father again?
And if he did come out,
what kind of person would he be?
The day when my judgment was given,
they woke up at midnight and told us
that they were being flown to
a place where we would have perfect
freedom within prison walls.
And that turned out to be
Robben Island.
A government spokesman stressed
that life meant life.
SEABIRDS CALLING
RECORDING: Interview, ANC President,
Nelson Mandela,
15th of July.
JOHN BATTERSBY, JOURNALIST:
I had many interviews with Mandela
over the years about his time in jail.
COUGHING
I specifically wanted to try and
get a bit behind the public persona.
Who is the private Mandela?
SNEEZING
Ah. I think that's Mandela
blowing his nose.
When I was removed to Robben Island,
conditions were very severe.
They were very harsh, very brutal.
CHRISTO BRAND, PRISON GUARD:
I go there in the middle of winter.
That morning when I opened
that first cell door,
I see elderly African men stand
on a cement floor,
bare feet with short pants
and short sleeves.
And he greet me with respect
that morning.
"Good morning, sir."
So I asked the Sergeant in charge,
what is this criminal in for?
He said, that's a terrorist who
tried to overthrow our country.
Immediately I feel I must hate
these guys.
They took us to the quarry
to dig lime.
We had to crush stones into
fine powder.
They had a measure which we had
to fill every day.
And when we fill that measure,
they increase it by half.
We did that, then again,
increase it by another half
which was a very heavy
type of work indeed.
When Mandela gets on the island,
the government instruction was
to break these guys
break them.
If they can die in prison
the more better.
PETER HAIN: Mandela and his leadership were
all on Robben Island.
Other people had been killed,
banned, silenced.
My parents were anti-apartheid
white activists.
Mum used to go to court,
and she came back to tell us
about him and his magisterial
image in court.
But they were very worried.
The flame of resistance
was being extinguished.
Our family was under siege.
We had these restrictions
put on us
followed around by the security,
police cars
parked outside our front gate.
Brothers and sisters
And so they
took the difficult decision,
did my parents that we
had to go into exile in Britain.
MIRIAM MAKEBA, EXILED IN THE USA:
Goodbye, mother ♪
Goodbye, father ♪
I had forgotten that song
makes me smile.
It's like a blast from the past.
LAUGHS
BARBARA MASEKELA,
EXILED IN THE USA: Oh, yeah.
Until we meet ♪
When we left the country,
we all thought that maybe it was
- a question
- HUGH MASEKELA, EXILED IN THE USA
of a few years,
maybe five years or so.
But leaving meant that the world
got to know more
and more and more and more
about apartheid and its evils.
MIRIAM MAKEBA, UN, 1964:
I appeal to you
and through you, to all
the countries of the world,
to empty the prisons of all those
who should never have been there.
God bless you all ♪
Leaving was pretty traumatic.
And I remember looking out over
the rails of the deck
and feeling quite sick
and seeing Robben Island
and thinking
you know, we're sailing right
past Nelson Mandela
in his in his cell.
There were dear friends ♪
I am leaving ♪
And my dad said to me,
"We're going into a new country,
we make a new life.
"We're not going to be able
to go back."
So you had this feeling
of real hopelessness,
but also a feeling that we were
not going to give up.
My heart remains with you ♪.
Some say her voice is the
voice of Africa.
Others have said she is Africa.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the fine, stirring artist,
Miriam Makeba.
Miriam Makeba on television
made such an impact.
CECELIE COUNTS: Everything
about her, not just her voice,
but her appearance,
her natural hair,
her African fabric, her
clear presence
was a powerful statement.
BRIAN JACKSON: My ears and
my mind was wide open to anything
that had to do with what we called
the motherland.
We were hungry for any music
or any African culture.
The larger community, learned much
more about South Africa
from Miriam Makeba
and Hugh Masekela
than it did from
a particular speech.
And they brought home that message.
Our circumstances were similar.
No matter where we were,
we were oppressed.
It was a global struggle against
blatant racism and oppression.
Quite startling to imagine that,
but for the sake of a ship,
you could have been born there.
Mandela's separation
from his family
over the years was something
that caused him
tremendous pain.
Being in prison is hell anyway,
but Mandela went through
a particularly rough time.
In 1968, his mother died,
and that was a
big psychological blow.
And then in 1969,
his son Thembe dies
in a car accident.
NDILEKA MANDELA: My father,
you know, had died age 24.
My grandfather can't even go
to his son's funeral.
You know, for me, my heart really
goes out to my grandfather.
He had lost two people,
one after the other,
that he held very dear to his heart.
His sense of strength
actually, it almost left him.
It really broke him.
When Mandela went to Robben Island,
the South African government
said the only way you will come out
is with your body straight.
Meaning in a coffin.
We, abroad in Britain, couldn't
sleep, couldn't rest.
We had to get him out.
And so we had
to continue campaigning.
And many people joined us, not
because of South Africa,
but because of racism in Britain.
And that link was there throughout.
If you are not white,
you are not wanted.
My father had been given
instructions by the ANC
to leave the country and continue
the struggle abroad.
During that period, my father was
travelling the world all over,
trying to get support
for our struggle.
But it wasn't easy.
The world at that time
was not particularly sympathetic.
The people of the world,
even the people of this country
have had enough of the racists.
They have had enough
of the oppressors.
In the late 1960s,
the anti-apartheid movement
in Britain was strong
but was waging a lone battle.
Most of the conservative right,
despite expressing some kind
of disdain or distaste
for apartheid,
actually in practice
supported them
armed them, traded with them,
promoted sporting tours with them.
Prime Minister, during the election,
was congratulating the British
on at last having a Prime Minister
who was prepared to sell arms
to his friends and supporters
in apartheid South Africa.
Are you happy about
that kind of congratulations?
Well, I think it's immaterial.
I'm concerned
with British interests.
So when the English
rugby authorities invited
white South Africa
to come over touring England,
I thought, "Right,
we've got to stop this tour."
We will not win this campaign
by polite negotiation.
The government is not interested
in negotiating
on a basis of the demands
which we are making.
Among the 9,000 people
who went to Twickenham,
there were two very
different objectives.
One from a minority
to challenge 400 police
and disrupt the game as far
as they could.
The rest went,
in spite of everything,
to enjoy the spectacle of 30 fine
rugby players in action.
CHRISTABEL GURNEY: I was very
involved in the Springbok campaign,
but it really caught the imagination
of hundreds of thousands
of young people
all over the country.
We went in for direct action,
which was exciting
for young people like me
who really wanted to do something
and not just stuff envelopes
and give out leaflets.
They were racist supremacists
and we had to stop it.
This was one of the finest games
seen at Twickenham for a long time.
But the looming cloud of apartheid
cast its shadow over all.
CHRISTABEL GURNEY: The
whole stand was full of demonstrators
giving the Nazi salute in protest.
People tried to run on.
And people did get on.
I didn't.
I think they've been a
tremendous success.
Yes, at every point we've had
the physical effect on the tour
has been quite fantastic.
It's been the most disastrous tour
ever by a team coming to Britain.
The anti-apartheid movement
membership trebled
and suddenly the
whole movement took off.
It was like striking
at the Achilles heel
of the white community
in South Africa.
This tour was not cancelled by
the South African government.
JOHN VORSTER, S.AFRICAN P.M:
The riff raff did not want us to come.
The riff raff won.
They were bitter about it.
And then I was subjected to
all sorts of revenge attacks.
The most graphic being
a letter bomb,
but there was a fault in the
trigger mechanism,
which meant it didn't go off.
It really showed that the
South African government
would stop at nothing
to destroy its enemies.
Khawueleza
Khawueleza is a South
African song.
The children shout as they see
police cars
coming to raid their homes.
They say, " Khawueleza, mama,"
which simply means,
"Hurry, Mama.
"Please, please don't let them
catch you.
Oh, listen, Mama,
Khawueleza, mama ♪
Khawueleza, Mama! ♪
Khawueleza Mama ♪
Have you lost hope?
I shall never lose hope.
And my people shall
never lose hope.
In fact, we expect
that the work will go on.
After Mandela went
to Robben Island,
Winnie was seen
as the mother of the nation.
Being the wife of Mandela, she
was subjected to tremendous pain.
They did terrible things to her.
Winnie, you know
she was arrested
in the middle of the night.
They wouldn't let me even take my
small children to my sister,
who also lived in Johannesburg.
And I left them sleeping.
She was incarcerated for 480 days.
To them, spouses of political
prisoners were free game
to mete out whatever cruelty they
felt was necessary.
I didn't know it was such relief
to faint.
It is such utter torture.
I started urinating blood.
The body was swollen like a balloon.
That didn't stop my interrogators
in any way.
NELSON MANDELA: I became very angry.
It's not easy to see your wife
being persecuted
in the way in which she was,
and that I could not give her
the support which she needed.
When Winnie was arrested,
it was not the only terrible things
that were done to her
in terms of torture and deprivation
and so forth,
but the psychological torture
for Mandela.
This was his one emotional
connection outside of prison.
He didn't know
what was happening to her.
It drove him, you know, right
to the edge of of insanity.
I wondered whether I
had taken the correct decision,
getting committed to the struggle.
I believe that we, the whites,
we have not only found the solution
to the race problem in principle,
but also prove it in practice.
In this sprawling black
ghetto near Johannesburg,
1.5 million people live
and live badly.
Between seven and 14 of them
to a house.
Few houses have proper floors.
JAMES MANGE, ANC YOUTH ACTIVIST:
As a kid, when I was growing up,
we all looked up
to Nelson Mandela.
When he combs his hair,
he used to have this reach
that went through his head.
We all used to comb
our hair like that.
In the streets,
people just kept on
talking about Nelson Mandela this,
Nelson Mandela that,
but we were then told never
to use those names again
or you'd be locked up.
The South African government
had spies and they were rife,
they were all over. Obviously,
you didn't know who was
and who wasn't,
but you knew they were there.
So, more than anything else,
there was a lull.
The government had succeeded
in so disrupting the movement
that there was not much
agitation outside.
When I was growing up,
I remember I used to look at the,
you know, the midnight sky,
ask myself certain questions.
Look at the moon, and say to myself,
"One day, I'd like to go there."
The apartheid regime
told us that we,
we were designed
to be hewers of wood
and fetchers of water,
and that you couldn't
be anything else.
You couldn't be a scientist.
BIRDS SINGING ♪
Harari! ♪
Harari. ♪
SIPHO "HOTSIX" MABUSE,
BAND LEADER, HARARI
But then, when the Black
Consciousness Movement came about,
actually was saying to black people,
"You don't have to accept the
kind of life you're leading."
The struggle could still
find expression.
SIPHO "HOTSIX" MABUSE: The
groundswell of black consciousness
in South Africa became something
that we referred and related to
in our music.
It's an awareness, how you relate
to yourself as a person.
You know you you can have
a black skin,
but you're not conscious
of your responsibility
as a black person.
STEVE BIKO: Black
people need to defeat the one
main element in politics which
was working against them,
and this was a psychological
feeling of inferiority.
MOKI CEKISANI,
Steve Biko was a nice guy.
BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS MOVEMEN
We became friends
because of me not being an academic
but understanding Black Consciousness
His Black was totally different
from all the other black
leaders in America.
Their Black was about pigmentation,
and Biko said 'No,'
it's an attitude of the mind.
It's a way of thinking
that is Black Consciousness.
NKOSINATHI BIKO: Would
have been about the age four.
My father would have been around 26.
One of my fondest memories
would be him teaching me
to fly my kite.
I like that image
because it expresses
in every way what I wish
for my own children.
You know, for them to fly high
in the world.
So the Black Consciousness Movement
was born out of that.
It was about reminding people
that you matter.
Hey! ♪
BRIAN JACKSON: It was
important for us black musicians.
We felt that it was our job to keep
the focus on on the struggle,
to kind of ask questions of
what was happening around us.
Gil Scott-Heron and I,
we had been talking a lot about
South Africa.
We both agreed
that we have to let them know
that there are people in the US
that actually care
about what's going on.
I said
What's the word? ♪
Tell me, brother
Have you heard ♪
From Johannesburg? ♪
To what extent
have you been successful?
Um Well, we've been successful
to the extent that we have
diminished the element of fear
in the minds of black people.
Discontent is below the surface,
very thinly veiled.
And whenever there's a reason
to express it,
black people are going
to express it.
And if we want to be free ♪
The apartheid government
made education
one of the central pillars
of apartheid.
There was a strategy to thin out
the quality of education
that was provided to
black South Africans.
In 1976, there was the intent
to impose Afrikaans,
the language of the apartheid state,
as a compulsory language
in black schools.
Tell me that our brothers
are over there ♪
Are defying the man ♪
We don't know for sure
Because ♪
I was in Orlando West
and I saw these police vehicles
going towards
Orlando West High School,
which is where I went to school.
..I hate it when the blood
Starts flowing ♪
But I'm glad to see
Resistance go ahead ♪
Hundreds, if not thousands
of students.
Tell me, brother
Have you heard from Johannesburg? ♪
This was actually basically
a peaceful protest
until they started shooting.
GUNSHO
It was David and Goliath.
- Police were armed with guns
- GUNSHO
children would use lids.
When the car comes through,
you throw the brick
and then you duck,
and then you hide, you jump,
you go to the next street and then
you throw a brick at it.
NEWS REPORTER: Good evening.
Black students in the South African
ghetto of Soweto stage
one of their largest
and most violent anti-government
demonstrations today.
It wasn't just Soweto.
It was a national uprising.
They dared to ask to be free.
NEWS REPORTER: Police and army
units kill nearly 260 blacks,
more than half of them
under the age of 18.
I mean, 13, 14, 15-year-olds,
you know, younger than that,
out in the streets, man,
taking bullets.
Their courage was, was unmatched.
One reaches a stage
where it matters
not any more how you react.
If it means death, then so be it.
POIGNANT SOFT FEMALE VOICES
NEWS REPORTER: 229 people
have been killed,
2,599 injured in Johannesburg's
black townships,
and these are the figures
given by the South African police.
United Nations estimates
are over 1,000 dead.
It certainly was a
media spectacle
that turned a lot of heads
in the West.
♪
NELSON MANDELA: Information
kept on coming through the prison walls.
The significance
of this uprising
was that the government
actually produced
one of the most rebellious
generation of African youth.
So many young people like me left
the country because there was no way
it could ever be the same.
We're going to fight.
We're going to fight.
We're leaving the country,
undergoing training and coming back
to free South Africa.
The Soweto uprising,
it was a moment when the
when the earth moved.
It was an act of absolute brutality
which shocked the world.
And so, you know, as the
international pressure increased,
the authorities were pains to show
that Mandela was being well treated.
They tried to assemble a group
of what they regarded
as sympathetic journalists
as proof that there
was some scrutiny
of what was going on
on the island.
VOICE OF NELSON MANDELA:
They used to treat us very tough,
but when there was an
important visitor coming,
they would say, "Oh, no, you don't
have to work continuously.
You can just take a walk."
Then we knew
that a visitor is coming.
What disturbed us
was what the authorities
were going to do after the
journalist had visited us.
Oh, Christ,
the same cruelty would be mobilised.
The photographs of Mandela
working in the vegetable garden,
as it were, was clearly a setup
to impress the journalists that,
you know, it's not some sort
of brutal gulag
where the Rivonia
prisoners are being held.
He knows he's being kind of used
as a stage prop
for the government propaganda.
And you can just see
from his expression,
he was very angry about it.
And shortly
after this whole incident,
Mandela renewed his resolve to
step up the anti-apartheid campaign.
And he wrote an article entitled
We Shall Crush Apartheid,
which was then smuggled out of
Robben Island.
Whites in this country have a right
to maintain our white identity
under all circumstances.
And at the same time,
we grant the black theirs.
DALI TAMBO: Apartheid
was based upon fear
and a lack of dignity
and self-respect.
And the importance of Stephen Biko
and the
Black Consciousness Movement
was to say to
young black men and women,
be conscious of your blackness.
Be proud of your blackness.
That day he was on his way
to see my father.
He was on his way to see the ANC.
But unfortunately, he was betrayed.
They arrested him.
When he was arrested
three days after that,
they arrested me also.
I also suffered.
They electrocuted me,
that's why I find myself today
with a damaged hearing nerve
But Biko, they wanted to beat him up
because Biko was tough.
Biko was fearless.
They arrested hm, they detained him,
and then
they killed him.
It was a very gloomy day
when my father's friend told me
that they've killed him.
Err. I remember that day.
PETER GABRIEL: "Biko"
September '77 ♪
Port Elizabeth weather fine ♪
It was business as usual ♪
In police room 619 ♪
Oh, Biko, Biko ♪
30,000 people gathered to bury him.
I have never seen
my mother in tears.
She's not one to cry easily.
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja ♪
The man is dead
The man is dead ♪
It was a painful moment,
but I think it was also a, a
a resuscitative moment.
When I try to sleep at night ♪
I can only dream in red ♪
PETER GABRIEL:
The song Biko was the first
overtly political song
that I ever wrote,
and it was a huge life
changer for me.
Oh, Biko, Biko
Because Biko ♪
What happened was
quite unforgivable.
Often human rights abuses
were just denied,
buried and forgotten.
And that convinced me
that I was doing the right thing.
Yihla Moja ♪
ARCHIVE FOOTAGE: The death of
Steve Biko in a South African jail
is bringing more publicity
to his cause of racial justice
than most of what he
did when he was alive.
ARCHIVE FOOTAGE: The death of such
a symbolic figure as Stephen Biko
may well be political dynamite
for those both here and abroad.
I would request all those
present here now
to rise in a minute of silence
in memory of the late Steve Biko.
You can blow out a candle ♪
But you can't blow out a fire ♪
Once the flames begin to catch ♪
The wind will blow it higher ♪
We should not mourn
the death of Steve Biko,
condemnation is not
enough.
We must plan to act to punish
the culprits.
CHANTING
ARCHIVE FOOTAGE: There's been no
single death
in the history
of this organisation
that has been responsible for
the kind of international reaction,
resulting in a mandatory
arms embargo against
the country of South Africa.
For Stephen Biko!
Oh, oh, oh ♪
The school student uprising
in Soweto,
followed by the murder
of Steve Biko,
inspired a huge awareness
internationally that
apartheid was still the devil
that it always was.
It gave extra ammunition to
the anti-apartheid movement
because now we had a resistance
building up inside the country,
just as we could provide solidarity
action outside the country.
What happens now is up to you
Oh, oh, oh. ♪
After Biko's death, my father felt
that the anti-apartheid movement
needed to give a face
to the struggle.
And the logical face was
Uncle Nelson's,
because apart
from their genuine friendship,
he saw Uncle Nelson
as a tool of the revolution.
You had a man
who became more than himself.
He became the aspiration of a
nation.
By freeing him you free the people
of South Africa.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
CHRISTO BRAND: In Robben Island,
I start working in the census office
and that is where we received
the letters and things like that.
My superior gave me instructions
to help unpacking
these big boxes of cards.
When they throw
you out the box of cards,
I observed it was birthday cards
for Mandela 60th birthday.
It was massive.
Over 55,000 cards.
I was thinking,
"Oh, that guy must be quite famous."
Celebrating Nelson Mandela's
birthday
was a very, very astute move.
This was a way of turning him
from a mysterious political figure
that the world hadn't
seen for decades,
into just a person
who was celebrating his birthday.
Or rather, not celebrating
and in prison,
but we could celebrate it for him.
NELSON MANDELA: And then, of course,
when you are a political prisoner
and there is growing support
for the ideas
for which you are now suffering,
immediately hope
becomes very strong.
ARCHIVE: Nelson Mandela, leading
member of African National Congress,
was accused of plotting sabotage
to overthrow the South African
government by force.
It was in the air that we
were going to be executed.
A remarkable demonstration by
a crowd of several hundred
outside the courthouse in Pretoria.
NELSON MANDELA, SPEAKING IN COURT:
I have cherished the ideal
of a democratic and free society.
GUNSHOTS
It is an ideal for which I hope to live for
and to see realised.
But my Lord, if it needs be,
EXPLOSION
it is an ideal
for which I am prepared
to die.
How many leaders have
that magnetism?
The Africans, they want
political independence.
Only Mandela.
We are fighting for a South Africa
which can only be led by him.
All over the world
couldn't rest, we had to
get him out!
CROWD CHANTING
They've got no education.
They've only just come
down from the trees.
The alternative is bloodshed.
The alternative is murder.
I will have nothing to do
with any organisation
that practices violence.
You know that this can never,
has never
and will never be right.
Free ♪
Nelson Mandela ♪.
It was a global struggle against
blatant racism and oppression.
Social movements
can change the world
and music can have
that political power.
Free ♪
Nelson Mandela. ♪
We are here to celebrate Nelson
Mandela's birthday.
- All right!
- CROWD CHEERING
You must free him.
And in freeing him, you free
the people of South Africa.
Free ♪
Nelson Mandela ♪.
VOICE OF NELSON MANDELA:
To me as a child, the Transkei
was the centre of the entire world.
My father was the chief.
He belonged to the Royal House
of Thembu.
There was a great
deal of legend around it.
My dad's name really is not Nelson.
He's called Rolihlahla.
It's only when he went to school
and the white teacher
couldn't pronounce Rolihlahla,
that he was given the name Nelson.
Rolihlahla means one who
is brave enough
to challenge the status quo.
It was a real experience,
my coming to Johannesburg.
Then I became more sharply
aware of racism,
and then the feeling
of bitterness developed.
MAKAZIWE MANDELA, DAUGHTER:
When he saw the dark living conditions
and horrible conditions
of black people
who were treated as slaves
actually, he became conscious.
The government denied us basic
human rights.
And they were very crude about it.
ARCHIVE: The clash of black
and white.
The South African government's
answer to the problem
is summed up in one word
apartheid, The segregation of
European from African.
What would you say is the purpose
of all this legislation?
To Produce complete separation
between whites and blacks,
except in the relationship
of master and servant.
BAREND DU PLESSIS, MINISTER:
The National Party was the party that
would protect us
through legislation or other means,
whatever necessary,
in terms of our culture
and our way of life.
The native, of course, is a man,
more of a child and has to be
treated as such.
When you say treated
to such, what does that mean?
Well, he hasn't our standard
of intelligence.
And when you ask him to do a thing
or tell him to do a thing,
you must be firm.
BARBARA MASEKELA
In 1948, when I was growing up,
CLOSE ADVISER TO NELSON MANDELA:
the nationalist government came in
that introduced apartheid.
We saw people being forcibly moved.
We saw people getting arrested.
We knew that the apartheid
government were violent
and that they killed black people.
NELSON MANDELA: I despise
them, they were full of evil.
But you can't fight discrimination
as an individual.
You need an organisation.
And that's why I joined
the African National Congress.
DALI TAMBO: Nelson Mandela
and my father, Oliver Tambo
they were like brothers.
They had gone to
Johannesburg together,
they had started a law
partnership together.
He was already, what my father used
to call,
a born mass leader.
But they got to a point
where it became clear
that the only way to advance
their people
was not through going to court
and arguing against racist judges.
It was to be engaged in struggle.
From the very beginning, the African
National Congress
has fought without hesitation
against all forms
of racial discrimination,
and we shall continue to do
so until freedom is achieved.
MIRIAM MAKEBA:
"Mayibuye"
"Mayibuye" is another South
African song.
It comes from the townships,
locations, reservations, whichever.
And it's simply a plea to
all southern Africans
to come together, share
their problems.
BARBARA MASEKELA:
We knew about Mandela
because the ANC would come
and speak
and we would say, "Mayibuye Africa,"
which is "come back Africa."
And that was the big slogan,
"Mayibuye."
And all of us would say, "Africa."
Africa ♪
Mayibuye ♪
Music is very important
in the consciousness of
the people of South Africa.
Vuka Mandela noSisulu ♪
Sobukwe nawe Luthuli ♪.
Miriam was a great star,
you know, I knew her through
my brother.
Hugh was also a great
South African musician.
She recognised that with a song,
you know, you could tell
a bigger story.
And it changed, you know,
the whole
way in which people
fought injustice.
Vuka Mandela noSisulu♪
We have been brought up in the
tradition of non-violence
and peaceful struggle.
But the government took advantage
of our commitment.
ARCHIVE: Demonstrations against
the South African government's
strict apartheid policies flare
into shocking violence.
SCREAMING CROWD
SOMBRE TONES
♪
ARCHIVE: More than 60 Africans,
including women and children,
were killed and more than
170 were injured
when the police opened fire on
a crowd estimated at 20,000.
Now, if the government doesn't give
you the kind of concessions
that you want sometime soon
is there any likelihood
of violence?
There are many people who feel
that it is useless
and futile for us to continue
talking peace
and non-violence against
a government,
whose reply is only savage attacks.
I think the time has come
for us to consider
whether the methods which we have
applied so far are adequate.
The government closed all channels
of communication.
The instruction came from
the leadership
that I must go underground
and organise resistance against
the government.
We realised that we either
had to capitulate
or to stand up and fight
EXPLOSION
and we chose the latter.
I went underground in April 1961.
I had five children, three from
my first wife,
two from my second wife.
I wanted to remain with my wife
and my family
but I couldn't.
It was necessary for the party.
WINNIE MANDELA: I remember
years ago when we got married,
my father said to me,
I must remember
that I am marrying
a struggle and not the man.
BARBARA MASEKELA: He adored her.
He loved his wife
he loved Winnie.
And of course they suffered,
you know.
Um, but the whole country
was suffering.
I believe that the white race
in this country
should be preserved and not
be swallowed up
by a race which is in a lesser
state of development.
I was underground.
I trained
in Ethiopia and Algeria.
I visited a number of states
to ask for support.
When I returned from abroad,
I wanted to report to the ANC
that I was back.
And I suspect that I had ignored
the security.
That was really the mistake.
I was caught.
DU PLESSIS: Mr Mandela was known
as a terrorist.
That is how he was portrayed
after committing themselves
to violent acts in order to secure
their political rights.
So it is good that they remove these
people from the streets.
ARCHIVE: The accused are
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela,
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu.
ABDUL MINTY: When they were arrested,
we were worried that
they would be sentenced to death.
ARCHIVE: Nelson Mandela, leader and
founder of the sabotage
movement spear of the nation
and a leading
member of African National Congress,
was accused with the others
of plotting sabotage
to overthrow the South African
government by force.
MINTY: So sabotage carried
the death penalty.
We knew that the South African
government wanted to execute them.
So we ran a campaign to stop
the executions.
When I was in Britain, I was working
with the anti-apartheid movement.
We organised many campaigns,
the boycott campaigns,
by our petitions,
our demonstrations, our resolutions.
We got the British government,
many other governments to demand
that they not be executed
because they are national leaders.
They are needed for the future.
CROWD SINGING "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" ♪
ARCHIVE: Outside the High Court in
Pretoria, sympathisers wait
for the verdict on black leader,
Nelson Mandela.
They knew what the consequences
are going to be for them.
They were going to kill them.
That was their intention.
JUDGE DE WET: Giving the matter
very serious consideration,
I have decided not to impose
a supreme penalty.
The sentence in the case
of all the accused
will be one of life imprisonment.
ARCHIVE: At the back
entrance to the Pretoria court,
large crowds gather to watch
the accused being driven away
to start their life sentences.
WINNIE MANDELA:
Part of my soul did go with him.
ZENANI MANDELA: When my father
went to prison, I was two years old.
What troubled me the most
is would I ever see my father again?
And if he did come out,
what kind of person would he be?
The day when my judgment was given,
they woke up at midnight and told us
that they were being flown to
a place where we would have perfect
freedom within prison walls.
And that turned out to be
Robben Island.
A government spokesman stressed
that life meant life.
SEABIRDS CALLING
RECORDING: Interview, ANC President,
Nelson Mandela,
15th of July.
JOHN BATTERSBY, JOURNALIST:
I had many interviews with Mandela
over the years about his time in jail.
COUGHING
I specifically wanted to try and
get a bit behind the public persona.
Who is the private Mandela?
SNEEZING
Ah. I think that's Mandela
blowing his nose.
When I was removed to Robben Island,
conditions were very severe.
They were very harsh, very brutal.
CHRISTO BRAND, PRISON GUARD:
I go there in the middle of winter.
That morning when I opened
that first cell door,
I see elderly African men stand
on a cement floor,
bare feet with short pants
and short sleeves.
And he greet me with respect
that morning.
"Good morning, sir."
So I asked the Sergeant in charge,
what is this criminal in for?
He said, that's a terrorist who
tried to overthrow our country.
Immediately I feel I must hate
these guys.
They took us to the quarry
to dig lime.
We had to crush stones into
fine powder.
They had a measure which we had
to fill every day.
And when we fill that measure,
they increase it by half.
We did that, then again,
increase it by another half
which was a very heavy
type of work indeed.
When Mandela gets on the island,
the government instruction was
to break these guys
break them.
If they can die in prison
the more better.
PETER HAIN: Mandela and his leadership were
all on Robben Island.
Other people had been killed,
banned, silenced.
My parents were anti-apartheid
white activists.
Mum used to go to court,
and she came back to tell us
about him and his magisterial
image in court.
But they were very worried.
The flame of resistance
was being extinguished.
Our family was under siege.
We had these restrictions
put on us
followed around by the security,
police cars
parked outside our front gate.
Brothers and sisters
And so they
took the difficult decision,
did my parents that we
had to go into exile in Britain.
MIRIAM MAKEBA, EXILED IN THE USA:
Goodbye, mother ♪
Goodbye, father ♪
I had forgotten that song
makes me smile.
It's like a blast from the past.
LAUGHS
BARBARA MASEKELA,
EXILED IN THE USA: Oh, yeah.
Until we meet ♪
When we left the country,
we all thought that maybe it was
- a question
- HUGH MASEKELA, EXILED IN THE USA
of a few years,
maybe five years or so.
But leaving meant that the world
got to know more
and more and more and more
about apartheid and its evils.
MIRIAM MAKEBA, UN, 1964:
I appeal to you
and through you, to all
the countries of the world,
to empty the prisons of all those
who should never have been there.
God bless you all ♪
Leaving was pretty traumatic.
And I remember looking out over
the rails of the deck
and feeling quite sick
and seeing Robben Island
and thinking
you know, we're sailing right
past Nelson Mandela
in his in his cell.
There were dear friends ♪
I am leaving ♪
And my dad said to me,
"We're going into a new country,
we make a new life.
"We're not going to be able
to go back."
So you had this feeling
of real hopelessness,
but also a feeling that we were
not going to give up.
My heart remains with you ♪.
Some say her voice is the
voice of Africa.
Others have said she is Africa.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the fine, stirring artist,
Miriam Makeba.
Miriam Makeba on television
made such an impact.
CECELIE COUNTS: Everything
about her, not just her voice,
but her appearance,
her natural hair,
her African fabric, her
clear presence
was a powerful statement.
BRIAN JACKSON: My ears and
my mind was wide open to anything
that had to do with what we called
the motherland.
We were hungry for any music
or any African culture.
The larger community, learned much
more about South Africa
from Miriam Makeba
and Hugh Masekela
than it did from
a particular speech.
And they brought home that message.
Our circumstances were similar.
No matter where we were,
we were oppressed.
It was a global struggle against
blatant racism and oppression.
Quite startling to imagine that,
but for the sake of a ship,
you could have been born there.
Mandela's separation
from his family
over the years was something
that caused him
tremendous pain.
Being in prison is hell anyway,
but Mandela went through
a particularly rough time.
In 1968, his mother died,
and that was a
big psychological blow.
And then in 1969,
his son Thembe dies
in a car accident.
NDILEKA MANDELA: My father,
you know, had died age 24.
My grandfather can't even go
to his son's funeral.
You know, for me, my heart really
goes out to my grandfather.
He had lost two people,
one after the other,
that he held very dear to his heart.
His sense of strength
actually, it almost left him.
It really broke him.
When Mandela went to Robben Island,
the South African government
said the only way you will come out
is with your body straight.
Meaning in a coffin.
We, abroad in Britain, couldn't
sleep, couldn't rest.
We had to get him out.
And so we had
to continue campaigning.
And many people joined us, not
because of South Africa,
but because of racism in Britain.
And that link was there throughout.
If you are not white,
you are not wanted.
My father had been given
instructions by the ANC
to leave the country and continue
the struggle abroad.
During that period, my father was
travelling the world all over,
trying to get support
for our struggle.
But it wasn't easy.
The world at that time
was not particularly sympathetic.
The people of the world,
even the people of this country
have had enough of the racists.
They have had enough
of the oppressors.
In the late 1960s,
the anti-apartheid movement
in Britain was strong
but was waging a lone battle.
Most of the conservative right,
despite expressing some kind
of disdain or distaste
for apartheid,
actually in practice
supported them
armed them, traded with them,
promoted sporting tours with them.
Prime Minister, during the election,
was congratulating the British
on at last having a Prime Minister
who was prepared to sell arms
to his friends and supporters
in apartheid South Africa.
Are you happy about
that kind of congratulations?
Well, I think it's immaterial.
I'm concerned
with British interests.
So when the English
rugby authorities invited
white South Africa
to come over touring England,
I thought, "Right,
we've got to stop this tour."
We will not win this campaign
by polite negotiation.
The government is not interested
in negotiating
on a basis of the demands
which we are making.
Among the 9,000 people
who went to Twickenham,
there were two very
different objectives.
One from a minority
to challenge 400 police
and disrupt the game as far
as they could.
The rest went,
in spite of everything,
to enjoy the spectacle of 30 fine
rugby players in action.
CHRISTABEL GURNEY: I was very
involved in the Springbok campaign,
but it really caught the imagination
of hundreds of thousands
of young people
all over the country.
We went in for direct action,
which was exciting
for young people like me
who really wanted to do something
and not just stuff envelopes
and give out leaflets.
They were racist supremacists
and we had to stop it.
This was one of the finest games
seen at Twickenham for a long time.
But the looming cloud of apartheid
cast its shadow over all.
CHRISTABEL GURNEY: The
whole stand was full of demonstrators
giving the Nazi salute in protest.
People tried to run on.
And people did get on.
I didn't.
I think they've been a
tremendous success.
Yes, at every point we've had
the physical effect on the tour
has been quite fantastic.
It's been the most disastrous tour
ever by a team coming to Britain.
The anti-apartheid movement
membership trebled
and suddenly the
whole movement took off.
It was like striking
at the Achilles heel
of the white community
in South Africa.
This tour was not cancelled by
the South African government.
JOHN VORSTER, S.AFRICAN P.M:
The riff raff did not want us to come.
The riff raff won.
They were bitter about it.
And then I was subjected to
all sorts of revenge attacks.
The most graphic being
a letter bomb,
but there was a fault in the
trigger mechanism,
which meant it didn't go off.
It really showed that the
South African government
would stop at nothing
to destroy its enemies.
Khawueleza
Khawueleza is a South
African song.
The children shout as they see
police cars
coming to raid their homes.
They say, " Khawueleza, mama,"
which simply means,
"Hurry, Mama.
"Please, please don't let them
catch you.
Oh, listen, Mama,
Khawueleza, mama ♪
Khawueleza, Mama! ♪
Khawueleza Mama ♪
Have you lost hope?
I shall never lose hope.
And my people shall
never lose hope.
In fact, we expect
that the work will go on.
After Mandela went
to Robben Island,
Winnie was seen
as the mother of the nation.
Being the wife of Mandela, she
was subjected to tremendous pain.
They did terrible things to her.
Winnie, you know
she was arrested
in the middle of the night.
They wouldn't let me even take my
small children to my sister,
who also lived in Johannesburg.
And I left them sleeping.
She was incarcerated for 480 days.
To them, spouses of political
prisoners were free game
to mete out whatever cruelty they
felt was necessary.
I didn't know it was such relief
to faint.
It is such utter torture.
I started urinating blood.
The body was swollen like a balloon.
That didn't stop my interrogators
in any way.
NELSON MANDELA: I became very angry.
It's not easy to see your wife
being persecuted
in the way in which she was,
and that I could not give her
the support which she needed.
When Winnie was arrested,
it was not the only terrible things
that were done to her
in terms of torture and deprivation
and so forth,
but the psychological torture
for Mandela.
This was his one emotional
connection outside of prison.
He didn't know
what was happening to her.
It drove him, you know, right
to the edge of of insanity.
I wondered whether I
had taken the correct decision,
getting committed to the struggle.
I believe that we, the whites,
we have not only found the solution
to the race problem in principle,
but also prove it in practice.
In this sprawling black
ghetto near Johannesburg,
1.5 million people live
and live badly.
Between seven and 14 of them
to a house.
Few houses have proper floors.
JAMES MANGE, ANC YOUTH ACTIVIST:
As a kid, when I was growing up,
we all looked up
to Nelson Mandela.
When he combs his hair,
he used to have this reach
that went through his head.
We all used to comb
our hair like that.
In the streets,
people just kept on
talking about Nelson Mandela this,
Nelson Mandela that,
but we were then told never
to use those names again
or you'd be locked up.
The South African government
had spies and they were rife,
they were all over. Obviously,
you didn't know who was
and who wasn't,
but you knew they were there.
So, more than anything else,
there was a lull.
The government had succeeded
in so disrupting the movement
that there was not much
agitation outside.
When I was growing up,
I remember I used to look at the,
you know, the midnight sky,
ask myself certain questions.
Look at the moon, and say to myself,
"One day, I'd like to go there."
The apartheid regime
told us that we,
we were designed
to be hewers of wood
and fetchers of water,
and that you couldn't
be anything else.
You couldn't be a scientist.
BIRDS SINGING ♪
Harari! ♪
Harari. ♪
SIPHO "HOTSIX" MABUSE,
BAND LEADER, HARARI
But then, when the Black
Consciousness Movement came about,
actually was saying to black people,
"You don't have to accept the
kind of life you're leading."
The struggle could still
find expression.
SIPHO "HOTSIX" MABUSE: The
groundswell of black consciousness
in South Africa became something
that we referred and related to
in our music.
It's an awareness, how you relate
to yourself as a person.
You know you you can have
a black skin,
but you're not conscious
of your responsibility
as a black person.
STEVE BIKO: Black
people need to defeat the one
main element in politics which
was working against them,
and this was a psychological
feeling of inferiority.
MOKI CEKISANI,
Steve Biko was a nice guy.
BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS MOVEMEN
We became friends
because of me not being an academic
but understanding Black Consciousness
His Black was totally different
from all the other black
leaders in America.
Their Black was about pigmentation,
and Biko said 'No,'
it's an attitude of the mind.
It's a way of thinking
that is Black Consciousness.
NKOSINATHI BIKO: Would
have been about the age four.
My father would have been around 26.
One of my fondest memories
would be him teaching me
to fly my kite.
I like that image
because it expresses
in every way what I wish
for my own children.
You know, for them to fly high
in the world.
So the Black Consciousness Movement
was born out of that.
It was about reminding people
that you matter.
Hey! ♪
BRIAN JACKSON: It was
important for us black musicians.
We felt that it was our job to keep
the focus on on the struggle,
to kind of ask questions of
what was happening around us.
Gil Scott-Heron and I,
we had been talking a lot about
South Africa.
We both agreed
that we have to let them know
that there are people in the US
that actually care
about what's going on.
I said
What's the word? ♪
Tell me, brother
Have you heard ♪
From Johannesburg? ♪
To what extent
have you been successful?
Um Well, we've been successful
to the extent that we have
diminished the element of fear
in the minds of black people.
Discontent is below the surface,
very thinly veiled.
And whenever there's a reason
to express it,
black people are going
to express it.
And if we want to be free ♪
The apartheid government
made education
one of the central pillars
of apartheid.
There was a strategy to thin out
the quality of education
that was provided to
black South Africans.
In 1976, there was the intent
to impose Afrikaans,
the language of the apartheid state,
as a compulsory language
in black schools.
Tell me that our brothers
are over there ♪
Are defying the man ♪
We don't know for sure
Because ♪
I was in Orlando West
and I saw these police vehicles
going towards
Orlando West High School,
which is where I went to school.
..I hate it when the blood
Starts flowing ♪
But I'm glad to see
Resistance go ahead ♪
Hundreds, if not thousands
of students.
Tell me, brother
Have you heard from Johannesburg? ♪
This was actually basically
a peaceful protest
until they started shooting.
GUNSHO
It was David and Goliath.
- Police were armed with guns
- GUNSHO
children would use lids.
When the car comes through,
you throw the brick
and then you duck,
and then you hide, you jump,
you go to the next street and then
you throw a brick at it.
NEWS REPORTER: Good evening.
Black students in the South African
ghetto of Soweto stage
one of their largest
and most violent anti-government
demonstrations today.
It wasn't just Soweto.
It was a national uprising.
They dared to ask to be free.
NEWS REPORTER: Police and army
units kill nearly 260 blacks,
more than half of them
under the age of 18.
I mean, 13, 14, 15-year-olds,
you know, younger than that,
out in the streets, man,
taking bullets.
Their courage was, was unmatched.
One reaches a stage
where it matters
not any more how you react.
If it means death, then so be it.
POIGNANT SOFT FEMALE VOICES
NEWS REPORTER: 229 people
have been killed,
2,599 injured in Johannesburg's
black townships,
and these are the figures
given by the South African police.
United Nations estimates
are over 1,000 dead.
It certainly was a
media spectacle
that turned a lot of heads
in the West.
♪
NELSON MANDELA: Information
kept on coming through the prison walls.
The significance
of this uprising
was that the government
actually produced
one of the most rebellious
generation of African youth.
So many young people like me left
the country because there was no way
it could ever be the same.
We're going to fight.
We're going to fight.
We're leaving the country,
undergoing training and coming back
to free South Africa.
The Soweto uprising,
it was a moment when the
when the earth moved.
It was an act of absolute brutality
which shocked the world.
And so, you know, as the
international pressure increased,
the authorities were pains to show
that Mandela was being well treated.
They tried to assemble a group
of what they regarded
as sympathetic journalists
as proof that there
was some scrutiny
of what was going on
on the island.
VOICE OF NELSON MANDELA:
They used to treat us very tough,
but when there was an
important visitor coming,
they would say, "Oh, no, you don't
have to work continuously.
You can just take a walk."
Then we knew
that a visitor is coming.
What disturbed us
was what the authorities
were going to do after the
journalist had visited us.
Oh, Christ,
the same cruelty would be mobilised.
The photographs of Mandela
working in the vegetable garden,
as it were, was clearly a setup
to impress the journalists that,
you know, it's not some sort
of brutal gulag
where the Rivonia
prisoners are being held.
He knows he's being kind of used
as a stage prop
for the government propaganda.
And you can just see
from his expression,
he was very angry about it.
And shortly
after this whole incident,
Mandela renewed his resolve to
step up the anti-apartheid campaign.
And he wrote an article entitled
We Shall Crush Apartheid,
which was then smuggled out of
Robben Island.
Whites in this country have a right
to maintain our white identity
under all circumstances.
And at the same time,
we grant the black theirs.
DALI TAMBO: Apartheid
was based upon fear
and a lack of dignity
and self-respect.
And the importance of Stephen Biko
and the
Black Consciousness Movement
was to say to
young black men and women,
be conscious of your blackness.
Be proud of your blackness.
That day he was on his way
to see my father.
He was on his way to see the ANC.
But unfortunately, he was betrayed.
They arrested him.
When he was arrested
three days after that,
they arrested me also.
I also suffered.
They electrocuted me,
that's why I find myself today
with a damaged hearing nerve
But Biko, they wanted to beat him up
because Biko was tough.
Biko was fearless.
They arrested hm, they detained him,
and then
they killed him.
It was a very gloomy day
when my father's friend told me
that they've killed him.
Err. I remember that day.
PETER GABRIEL: "Biko"
September '77 ♪
Port Elizabeth weather fine ♪
It was business as usual ♪
In police room 619 ♪
Oh, Biko, Biko ♪
30,000 people gathered to bury him.
I have never seen
my mother in tears.
She's not one to cry easily.
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja ♪
The man is dead
The man is dead ♪
It was a painful moment,
but I think it was also a, a
a resuscitative moment.
When I try to sleep at night ♪
I can only dream in red ♪
PETER GABRIEL:
The song Biko was the first
overtly political song
that I ever wrote,
and it was a huge life
changer for me.
Oh, Biko, Biko
Because Biko ♪
What happened was
quite unforgivable.
Often human rights abuses
were just denied,
buried and forgotten.
And that convinced me
that I was doing the right thing.
Yihla Moja ♪
ARCHIVE FOOTAGE: The death of
Steve Biko in a South African jail
is bringing more publicity
to his cause of racial justice
than most of what he
did when he was alive.
ARCHIVE FOOTAGE: The death of such
a symbolic figure as Stephen Biko
may well be political dynamite
for those both here and abroad.
I would request all those
present here now
to rise in a minute of silence
in memory of the late Steve Biko.
You can blow out a candle ♪
But you can't blow out a fire ♪
Once the flames begin to catch ♪
The wind will blow it higher ♪
We should not mourn
the death of Steve Biko,
condemnation is not
enough.
We must plan to act to punish
the culprits.
CHANTING
ARCHIVE FOOTAGE: There's been no
single death
in the history
of this organisation
that has been responsible for
the kind of international reaction,
resulting in a mandatory
arms embargo against
the country of South Africa.
For Stephen Biko!
Oh, oh, oh ♪
The school student uprising
in Soweto,
followed by the murder
of Steve Biko,
inspired a huge awareness
internationally that
apartheid was still the devil
that it always was.
It gave extra ammunition to
the anti-apartheid movement
because now we had a resistance
building up inside the country,
just as we could provide solidarity
action outside the country.
What happens now is up to you
Oh, oh, oh. ♪
After Biko's death, my father felt
that the anti-apartheid movement
needed to give a face
to the struggle.
And the logical face was
Uncle Nelson's,
because apart
from their genuine friendship,
he saw Uncle Nelson
as a tool of the revolution.
You had a man
who became more than himself.
He became the aspiration of a
nation.
By freeing him you free the people
of South Africa.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
CHRISTO BRAND: In Robben Island,
I start working in the census office
and that is where we received
the letters and things like that.
My superior gave me instructions
to help unpacking
these big boxes of cards.
When they throw
you out the box of cards,
I observed it was birthday cards
for Mandela 60th birthday.
It was massive.
Over 55,000 cards.
I was thinking,
"Oh, that guy must be quite famous."
Celebrating Nelson Mandela's
birthday
was a very, very astute move.
This was a way of turning him
from a mysterious political figure
that the world hadn't
seen for decades,
into just a person
who was celebrating his birthday.
Or rather, not celebrating
and in prison,
but we could celebrate it for him.
NELSON MANDELA: And then, of course,
when you are a political prisoner
and there is growing support
for the ideas
for which you are now suffering,
immediately hope
becomes very strong.