Mail & Guardian reporter
The crusading journalist John Pilger set a cat among the pigeons of South African complacency this week with his hour-long documentary Apartheid Did Not Die, on what he represented as a betrayal of the liberation cause by the African National Congress.
The documentary was broadcast in prime-time by the SABC, but only after top management had agonised over whether to broadcast it. The film was finally televised with an extraordinary disclaimer and followed by a hastily arranged panel discussion to “balance” it.
The film – broadcast simultaneously in the United Kingdom – was vintage Pilger, portraying the “new” South Africa as a Shangri- La for the likes of Mark Thatcher, in which the lot of the black working classes was little improvement on the apartheid era.
In the process he had President Nelson Mandela desperately defending the apparent betrayal of principles enshrined in the Freedom Charter and managed to humiliate one of the country’s top mining bosses, Michael Spicer of Anglo American, with a hostile cross-examination on the giant corporation’s record of underground fatalities.
Before the documentary was screened the SABC warned viewers that the film “presents a highly critical view of the new South Africa” by Pilger whose “views and interpretations are not those of the SABC”.
The disclaimer explained the programme was being shown “so that South Africans can see what is being broadcast to the world about us and to stimulate debate in our new democracy and about the issues Pilger raises and the journalistic methods he employs”.
The film nevertheless left the ANC secretary general, Kgalema Motlanthe, spluttering with indignation in the panel discussion that ensued. “There is nothing I heard said in this documentary that I haven’t heard said in an ANC branch,” protested Jeremy Cronin, on behalf of the South African Communist Party.
“This guy has absolutely no interest in the positive things that have been achieved,” complained black political scientist and businessman Kehla Shubane. “I can almost hear, from where we sit now, the roars of approval coming from Orange Farm, the squatter camps around Johannesburg, supporting this programme,” countered the panel chair, Max du Preez.
A lengthy article by Pilger on the alleged betrayal of South Africa by the ANC, published by the Mail & Guardian last week, has also precipitated a passionate debate, readers’ letters pouring in which argue all sides of the issue.