IDA JACOBS, Washington | Saturday
EASTERN Cape struggle hero Mkhuseli Jack has been honoured at the American premiere of a highly acclaimed documentary for his part in a peaceful boycott which the film makers say changed the course of South African history in the 20th century.
Jack, who was specially flown to Washington DC for the premiere of “A Force More Powerful – A Century of Non-violent Conflict” this week, was praised for leading a non-violent boycott of white business in Port Elizabeth during the height of civil resistance to apartheid in the 1980s.
The protest was instrumental, the documentary contends, in forcing President PW Botha to declare a State of Emergency that in turn mobilised both white and black South Africans against the regime and focused international attention on the liberation struggle.
Jack, who also the founder of the influential Port Elizabeth Youth Congress, was detained and banned during this period but was released when the economic effects of rent boycotts, labour strikes and other non-violent protests forced local pro-democracy concessions.
The peaceful boycott, award-winning film maker Steve York and content-advisor Peter Ackerman say, changed the course of history during the 20th century in South Africa.
The two-part “A Force more Powerful” documentary, narrated by Ben Kingsley, also focuses on the tactics and strategies of five other non-violent campaigns that changed history in India, Nashville in the US, Denmark, Poland, and Chile.
Jack used the premiere to emphasise the new challenges facing the now liberated South Africa, particularly the new struggled against HIV / AIDS and poverty.
“When I see what the Jews experienced, it makes my experience look minor in comparison,” Jack told the largely American audience.
Jack was not the only celebrated leader of strategic non-violent action present at the premiere. The highlight of the evening was the unexpected arrival of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Polish freedom fighter and former president Lech Walesa, who led the August 1980 strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk to protest the increase of food prices.
The two American civil rights pioneers Reverend James Lawson and Bernard Lafayette were also amongst the honoured attendees at the event. Both Lawson and Lafayette were instrumental in the American civil rights struggle. – African Eye News Service