ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS: 1. Synopsis Powerfully telling the story of a South African hero’s journey to freedom, Catch a Fire is the new film from director Phillip Noyce (The Quiet American, Rabbit- Proof Fence). The political thriller takes place during the country’s turbulent and divided times in the early 1980s, and in the new South Africa of today. 2. About the Production Apartheid ended 15 years ago in South Africa, but there are still heroes’ stories to be told from those times that the world has not yet heard. Patrick Chamusso’s life is one such story. 3. A Brief History of Apartheid (1948-1991) and South Africa (1652-present) While apartheid was only ended in South Africa 15 years ago, the roots of the system date back several centuries. 4. A Brief History of the ANC and the ANC Military Wing (MK) The African National Congress (ANC) was formed by a caucus of tribal, political, and religious groups in 1912, in response to the increasingly oppressive laws of the South African government that were depriving blacks of their rights, land and freedom. 5. A Brief History of Patrick Chamusso Patrick Chamusso was born into a rural Mozambique family in 1950. His father was a migrant laborer who worked over the border in South Africa as a miner, and as such was only allowed home once or twice a year (for Easter and/or Christmas) and was only minimally compensated.

Catch a Fire
A Brief History of Apartheid (1948-1991) and South Africa (1652-present)

While apartheid was only ended in South Africa 15 years ago, the roots of the system date back several centuries.

The country we know as South Africa was originally home to the San, huntergatherers who had migrated through the territory following game. Archaeological records of their ancestors date back 10,000 years. Subsequently, records of the habitation of the Bantu tribes go back 1,500 years. The Bantu migrated south from central Africa, bringing to their new region skills as iron-mongers, cattle ranchers, and produce farmers. By the mid-17th century, there were large tribes spread throughout South Africa, with different languages and cultures. It was then that the country was first settled by white people, in 1652, once Dutch East India Company ships sailed to the Cape of Good Hope to create a waystation.

Waves of immigrants from Holland, France, Germany, and England arrived over the next two centuries.

By the turn of the 19th century, the Cape was a British colony, a fact deeply resented by the descendants of the original Dutch settlers, the Afrikaners, who had become a distinct tribe with their own language and religion. Fiercely independent and deeply pious, they resented British efforts to end slavery. In 1834, a community of Afrikaners set out on an epic journey towards the country’s interior, to free themselves from British rule. Known as the Great Trek, the journey brought the Afrikaners into conflict with black tribes resisting their advance. One of the Afrikaners’ decisive battles was with the Zulu army, at a place now known as Blood River. An astonishing victory – not one Afrikaner life was lost, while Zulu fatalities numbered over 3,000 – contributed to the Afrikaners’ belief that they were chosen by God to civilize what they saw as “barbarian” races.

In 1910, South Africa’s four provinces merged into a national entity, placing millions of blacks under white rule. The central focus of government immediately became how to deal with what was referred to as “the native problem.” The resulting Natives Land Act of 1913 reserved 87% of the land for whites, dispossessing millions of blacks of their homes and farms. Blacks’ resistance to their dispossession evolved to become the driving political dynamic in the country for the next 80 years.

Afrikaner identity had long been characterized by the frontier/pioneering spirit of the Great Trekkers and their – mostly farming – descendants, who had been brutalized and oppressed by the British during the Boer Wars. By the mid-20th century, though, this identity had hardened into a conviction that their survival depended on self-reliance and isolation. It found expression in a form of nationalism that was inward-looking, defensive, and profoundly conservative. At its heart was a fear that their survival in South Africa would always be precarious, given that blacks outnumbered whites so dramatically.

Thanks to a campaign which exploited white fears of “swart gevaar,” “the black menace,” the right-wing Afrikaner National Party rose to power in 1948. The party’s agenda consolidated and vastly extended existing racial segregation into an ideological and legal system that regulated every aspect of South African life, from birth to death, according to race. This system was known as apartheid. The goals were to shield the Afrikaner race from miscegenation; to entrench white power; and to force blacks into wage labor. As a direct result, hundreds of black communities were forcibly removed and dumped into the increasingly impoverished tribal areas. Blacks were subjected to the notorious Pass Laws, forced to carry a document that had to be produced on demand under threat of imprisonment and that allowed authorities to further curtail their freedom.

Vociferous black resistance to apartheid came to a head on March 21st, 1960 in Sharpeville, a small township south of Johannesburg. Police fired on protesters rallying against the Pass Laws, killing 69 people and wounding 180; all of the protesters were unarmed, and most shot in the back. The government instituted a state of emergency in response to the outcry that followed. The African National Congress (ANC) and other left-wing political organizations were banned. Within a couple of years, most black leaders were either in exile or in prison, including anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela. The United Nations declared apartheid a crime against humanity.

A new generation became radicalized when student demonstrations in Soweto in 1976 led to more deaths. As a direct result, many youths joined the ANC military wing.

By the 1980s, South Africa was in a state of virtual civil war. The army occupied the townships. Any protest was met with maximum force, resulting in thousands of deaths. The whole country was almost completely isolated from the world. South Africa had been expelled from all international sporting bodies; its consumer goods were being boycotted; and international disinvestment and oil sanctions were destroying the economy.

With daily reports of atrocities fueling worldwide pressure on South Africa, President F.W. de Klerk bowed to the inevitable. In February 1990, he lifted the ban on the ANC and other political parties. Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years. Exiles were finally able to return home. Apartheid was dismantled.

In 1994, South Africa’s first free elections brought the ANC to power, with Nelson Mandela as President, and marked the end of Afrikaner rule in the country.

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A Brief History of the ANC and the ANC Military Wing (MK)
The African National Congress (ANC) was formed by a caucus of tribal, political, and religious groups in 1912, in response to the increasingly oppressive laws of the South African government that were depriving blacks of their rights, land and freedom.