Marianne Merten
TELEVISION
It’s a slice of real prison life not the Hollywood glamour lock-down peppered with special effects, nor the gold-studded rap glorification of being a bad “muthafucka”.
It’s about the reality of violence, rape, beatings and gory facial tattoos behind bars where the prison numbers gangs have dominated since the turn of the past century. It is a world where the gang general’s word counts, not the instructions from wardens or the correctional services officials, who face the possibility of attack every day, especially if “a number is put on” them.
But the BBC documentary Cage of Dreams already screened for the Correspondent programme in the United Kingdom and to go on South African TV on Tuesday May 22 is also about hope and the possibility of transformation if opportunities are provided.
Although filmed in Pollsmoor prison in the shadow of the picturesque Table Mountain right on the doorstep of plush Tokai suburb, what happen here occurs in just about every jail across South Africa. And considering that very few inmates die in jail, most of them are released into society, the documentary raises serious questions whether the prevalent attitude “lock them up and throw away the key” is appropriate.
The documentary is groundbreaking in many ways. Firstly, it is the first time film-makers have been given free access to a jail. Secondly, it is one of the few times gangsters like 28s prison boss Mogamat Benjamin and 28s gang judge Erefaan Jacobs, whose face is covered in crude black-blue tattoos, were prepared to talk. Thirdly, the documentary focuses on a pioneering prison transformation project run for awaiting-trial inmates by the Cape Town-based Centre for Conflict Resolution.
One of its shortcomings is the failure to clearly state the close ties between the prison gangs and those in the outside world.
Much of the documentary focuses on a series of conflict resolution workshops held at the jail in January and February. It stems from the brave steps by the jail’s first black maximum security head, Johnny Jansen, and his wardens to encourage a belief in peace and humanity rather than gang rules.
The workshops clearly have an impact as participants learn skills to deal with conflict, face their emotions and learn to cross the previous divides of the different number gangs.
Several were speechless in response to an exercise in which one man has to fall over backwards to be caught by others and passed by their hands to the end of the line. This would never have happened in their gang world. One man even asked others to catch him: when he was a child his father never had time for him.
Benjamin, who has since been released, says he is quitting gang life after spending 34 years of his life in various stints behind bars in the numbers gang world. Jacobs, who has been released on bail despite his fear of life outside prison walls and its numbers gangs, has gone to his old school in Heideveld on the Cape Flats to apologise for his behaviour, which led to his expulsion in standard three. While there he intervened on behalf of a standard one pupil just starting out on the path to gangsterism.
The documentary is not only an expos on gang life in overcrowded, unsanitary jails where the numbers gangs rule the iron-bar, cement-floor world behind high walls and razor wire.
It is a warning that should be screened at schools, community halls and even at soirees in the mink-and-manure belt. It is also a reminder that humanity can be found in even the darkest heart.
Let’s hope the bureaucrats, politicians and academics do not cloud the issue through speeches to claim credit for this and that, but act.
Cage of Dreams by Clifford Bestall and Pearlie Joubert will be broadcast on Special Assignment on SABC3 at 9.30pm on Tuesday May 22