Three decades after the momentous transition from Apartheid to a democratic South Africa, Fergal Keane returns to see what happened to the hopes and promises of a better nation. In a famous speech thirty years ago, as he collected the Nobel Peace Prize, Nelson Mandela spoke of a “common humanity” in which all South Africans would live “like the children of paradise.” In this final episode, in which Fergal Keane and Milton Nkosi re-visit some of the places and people they encountered 30 years ago, they are in the Western Cape, around Cape Town. They visit a school in the sprawling Khayelitsha township, and the university in Stellenbosch, once the centre of white and Afrikaner intellectual thought. With the country’s high crime rates, lack of jobs, violence and intense corruption, is all lost or can South Africans still hold onto hope?
The Children of Paradise: Without hope you're dead
2023-12-06 | 🔗This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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I take a closer look at the stories making the headlines with insights from the BBC's global network of experts search for the global story. Wherever you get your bbc, pope costs, it's a three part series, the children of Paradise and we ve come to the final episode.
Once again, we ve moved towards the western cape to cape town in the area around it. Why winding up there? Because that's what it all started? That's where the four
settlers came ashore in sixteen fifty
and established a cape colony, which then went on to become south africa and ultimately, apartheid south africa, where there, because we're trying to see what hope there is. We ve heard a novel, laugh about corruption, about political violence, about people's disillusionment and despair, but there is hope and we're looking for, particularly among the young people, the socalled born freeze, who were born after the elections in ninety. Ninety four welcome to the documentary from the BBC world service.
This is part three of the children of Paradise. A prisoner to president nelson rolex La La Mandela came smiling, it
sunlight at the union buildings into the old seas of colonial power came the heir to the leadership of a democratic nation. Malleson orders are sound.
on Burma do by some to be faithful to the republic of south africa. I'm fine
king and I was there on may tenth. Ninety. Ninety four with my colleague and dear friend, milton and cozy,
when the leader of the african national congress nelson mandela, was
sworn in as the first president of a non racial democracy in south africa. He came with the hopes of millions riding on his shoulders hope of liberation from poverty for peace and justice. Never and never, gay salad that this beautiful love. Well, ok that spirit the opera
I sent off one by another. Thirty years later milton and I have been travelling through south africa and hearing about how things really turned out- it's often been a journey through people's anger and disillusionment. In this program we ask, where is the hope for the future and will particularly focus on the young, the so called born, frees next year, they'll vote in an election where the a and c is expected to face the greatest ever challenge to it's dominance. The two weeks after becoming president mandela was in cape town for the opening of parliament. I was there with milton watching the crowds
black mixed race, wise chanting, joyfully in the streets here in the place where the colonial conquest began, but it all seemed so miraculous to me because just ten months earlier, we'd report
on a story in this city that made me fearful for the future yeah yeah yeah. I want all the back door locked. I came in
generative. You would think you were in front and it started from the front which I never know and always used to sit with a bang and the person in front of me was actually shocked and that that was guy, J,
janet g and and ackerman recounting what happened at Saint James s church in July. Ninety ninety three,
at seven o clock on Monday, the twenty sixth of July, the headlines, the small
A gunman grenade attack on a church congregation in cape town has left at least ten people dead about. One thousand people had gathered in Saint James is charged for the regular sunday evening service. In a matter of seconds, the place of worship became a killing ground, the local police chief, colonel Leonard night. I saw the door open and I think it banged open this. Luckily, for health, and first over, who is a bit usage, employs remember coming to the french yet as well, and I was just serve in the days if I can say that and that each of us in year, someone that I sat with it, was shot in the back and dmitri was also in this period.
The attack for black goldman happens, as talks were continuing on a new constitution for a free south africa. It was clearly aimed at sewing fear within the white community and maybe provoking a violent reaction from white extremists. At the same time, the death toll from political violence across the country was escalating in the cape town attack. Eleven people were killed. Janet g was one of those wounded
I felt something graze. My back and I didn't really realize that I had been shot. I did go down onto the floor and I felt something or an over me, but it actually went in my back and out the top. So again, I just believe in god's providence. It wasn't
time to die,
hackers were members of the athenian people's liberation army, the military wing of the pan african us congress, a radical black.
Whose rallying cry was one settler, one bullet, but I was very peaceful, come afterwards, estimating stress stress took years for me to deal with gunshots.
Well, this now reunite olonnois beetle. I listened to the growing shooting each other journalists recovered from their physical wounds.
and were able to vote in the non racial elections. The following April. Afeared bloodbath, never materialised.
All the talk now was of a rainbow nation. As milton and I sat listening, I wondered how the two women felt now neither seem to carry bitterness both believed in the ideal of non racial ism. It was the country's rampant, any qualities that worried them cuts at heart breaking, and this is a quick fix. We are such a divided country. Jimmy coefficient, that's between the rich and poor is one of the highest in the world, and I think it's getting higher think their economies in I'm. Turning very negative that it's terrible yeah are one thing I do think because I'm white and I was born in the previous government. If you were right here but privilege, even if you were poor, he was still privilege for schooling and things like that. You were peerage because of his skin color.
Unused, you, you suffer from white guilt. Do you feel that your part of one nation? Yes, I don't love. I still feel we very divided as a nation
I mean, I know the next generation, don't even see. Color wonderful is not an issue for me, but I still think, as I say, the rich and the poor
causes the division. What's the new divisions and new division offer me.
Never one rainy one idea melanie: you all listening to analyze, live on Kai, yellow each em.
my ball engaged. We leave the suburbs under the shade of table mountain the ocean in the distance
then I was along the airport road and into a place I knew from decades ago as an a part, a dumping ground for what were called surplus populations. Black people escaping poverty. Who'd flocked to keep them.
in search of work and driving along. I was struck that the thing that
eight heavily on the minds of the two massacre. Survivors was black poverty and the struggle facing the young. What's your hearing is one of those iconic sounds of the townships of the urban squatter camps.
Men, hammering corrugated ten and their use to create checks for people. This.
What I'm looking for is actually the second floor of the shop. I'm entirely check
in the western caveman, if I look I can see table mount
on a beautiful spring day, just the distance there, a case of great busy for the visiting.
But if you're living here
sure you are more likely to be preoccupied with the fact that forty seven percent of the population is unemployed. Nearly ninety percent of households here are food insecurity and around seventy percent of people are still living in shock.
And it's here we come to meet a generation that never lived under apart it. They don't have the history of struggle,
milton, grew up with a very different legacy of white south africans. There, the born freeze, but they do live with
economic and educational inheritance of apartheid. Only four point: nine percent,
go on to higher education. They live in a place where crime is endemic, we're just going into
gandhi so secondary school, and you walk in this assigned to the left over the entrance which says enter to learn and on the right next to the gates leave to serve.
The janessa jurassic park of people, like you, wouldn't want to acquire janessa, is the headmaster here, a quietly spoken, courteous man, but who exudes a steeliness as useful in dealing with recalcitrant pupils, one senses, as with local bureaucracy, walking in it. It looks very disciplined, orderly atmosphere here. How do you achieve this is not about me. It's about the people wikia. How many pupils do you have here now this year is one thousand four hundred and ten that's a big school and you are part of the wider. Currently, that's what you need. Yes, how is that managed? How are you managing the big challenges outside
versus your very disciplined clean, looking school, it was quite difficult to do such a big challenge to EU, especially because most of the lenders, lot of them
their staying with me again. Put us
one doesn't know, for instance, when her mom is most of them. They have been raised by single parent, but you kept lenders more resilient, a tenth of one percent
those little well. Do you still remain hopeful for the children here? Yes, of course,
I'm always somebody who's the optimistic respecting. What's going on
was unsafe, if one since you they see it as something positive. Acousticon look up to that some of them. They are going to copy that.
Although you understand some of them, they dont at all, but majority persuasions, is to do a lot of them still at school.
so I am looking in here and this year. Students
very studious. What are they working on here?
as things
The
I'm doing nothing.
the? How you got your own ambition, you're hoping the key may hoping isco when it become a childlike, are also a laugh, because I wanna fight for your rights of people. I think I can make the world a better place. You know growing up. You see a lot of poverty, a lot of violence against the eighteen days, a lot of things due to leg of the many many people that felt like teenagers, because they gave themselves
at a young age, dig, do jack substances and the abuse them
So they can not. Gate is willing to play with and we have to choose why we
school begins to be does go. There's no wait a few too, because schools everything's, don't ask
Tina sent him good deigning to eighteen years.
I believe a better future is possible in south africa to get if it is possible if a person is dedicated to be a better person. The a couple of classrooms away, colusa masami, is teaching life sciences. She's been a teacher for twelve years, her review of south african life
is shaded by crime in the area, especially here in sight see.
Do you find that there are hundreds of this class is not the task of others. They are not interested in all other. They want to close. Today,
I mean like their brothers and sisters, nor do they have evidence of them creating and successful success for the homeless.
It's obviously a sightsee a bit of a name for gangsters exactly so they are not educated, they're, not visible at school, but they have money.
Can I just ask you, as a woman in this community,
Do you fear the violence that present-
because I don't even want to stay after five. If the prince abandoned the deputies, not around a constant
it's too risky, because what might happen
because you made the robbed that there are many instances when the us maybe become to school, like people coming in dropping the teachers inside the school year. So because of such that you can hear after hours, but the school is educating children who ask questions
and it highlights a willingness of people to confront their own rulers. The thing you need to understand before writing- south africa off hello, other
very good at milton
my name is max to prayer.
And I am a veteran heck from south africa, my
Motor. Eighty in our land is that I dare to start an empty up like a newspaper, but not only that I did it in the language of the oppressor max. Had his life threatened his newspaper bombed and was the target of numerous lawsuits. He was writing in his mother tongue. Afrikaans useless
He still infuriating politicians he's also scornful of those who say. South africa is becoming a basket case. I shot as much as the next guy about corruption and bad governance. I think the agency is bloody, useless as a government, but that's not the whole story. What irritates me also, but too many white people as they look at government corruption, especially post jacob Duma of former president and its bad stab it's an incompetent administration that we have, that they say that government equals black government equals bad nation, and I look around me and I see stole one of the most vibrant societies on the planet. Communities everywhere. Small big rural, suburban people are rising up, people are doing things, people
we're helping each other people are rebuilding. Thank you mix. I think you're hitting the nail on the head that there is so much resilience in the spirit of the people of south africa. I mean the resilience is over centuries and it's much more intense now than it's ever been even under apartheid, with all the pressures we're facing corruption and load shedding power blackouts, there's still that resilience that you're talking about that tomorrow is going to be better than yesterday. We are addicted to hope and what we have now.
Temporary, I would say, because we ve gone through the stage where we believe that government is everything, but is a healthy scepticism among citizens are saying we can't really trust people in power. We need to watch them all the time and made me a lot of stuff. We should do ourselves,
Get on with life for all the corrupt politicians, the term ship gangsters, there are positive role,
as for the young often found in organizations campaigning on poverty, gender, human rights, press freedom with elections coming
push is on to remind people of their right to hold politicians to account. We came across this joyous singing in cape town conference centre on our way to a meeting on social justice,
they to speak? Was a woman,
regarded by many as a conscience of modern south africa, the former public protector, the official watchdog on corruption to lead modern seller. She reported on corruption under former president Jacob Zuma holding him to account. Despite immense pressure, you were the target of a great deal of vilification of threats. How did you handle that.
Because I'm just understood that those streets, we suppose I didn't think it was personally. I just think it s people trying to survive of possibility,
the security threats. I worried a about my family,
We want any member of my family getting killed on my part, but we got in,
being killed. Of course, I would never throw myself and I pass, but my approach is
we're going to die anyways and if it's my day to die, that's okay, and at least I would rather die doing something good then dying inside first, because I live in a country that I can recognize. Do you ever feel that there's a danger of complacency, and I say that because there is such a strong free
press. You had a fairly fairly robust judiciary and you have a strong opposition politics. I too agree with here. I think between not when we engage in making sure that we demand accountability is son. Is a problem arises instead of letting his limbs festa? I think a lot more people are voting in descending
but a lot of them are saying our lives are exactly where they were and the security problem is a challenge per minute because of poverty. So what is emerging is maybe cross interest. But to answer your question
directly? Yes, it is spending vote is emerging.
Causes a lot of education,
milton, and I are coming to the end of our journey cross
the wine lands of the western cape and into the valley of the cruel drachen stain the great dragons teeth with its white cake, dutch houses and field after field of fines, we're on our way to meet milton's to children
they're, both born freeze under attending university and still ambush once the academic citadel of apartheid. South africa, in the broad plaza of stolen washing university
Such a different place to the all white university that I foresaw
Nineteen. Eighty four, when I came here, it's a mix of
all races and many different viewpoints, I'm here with milton we're going to talk to his children for students
whom I know of live nonsense? There were very, very young, chiefly on data
the
Luton hopeless? Is children whoop
their future in south africa. South africa has something beautiful, beautiful and I think part of my features here for sure, but I think you've got to travel. You've got a challenge got to meet people, then
I think like you and people that don't and you grow, and then you come back when you tell the people what you've learned and then you keep moving for that one. I would personally say that, yes, my future is in south africa in terms of wanting to make a change, but
make a change. I feel as though we need another couple of nelson mandela's. You have the agency, whose be ruling relentlessly since nineteen eighty four with nelson mandela's release from prison, and you look at things now and how the country has been run.
and the state of the country- and one has to say you know what are we voting for the agency because they're doing the things that we need them to do? Or is it just because of their relic of
Islam and how young and fresh install is in the minds of south africans that we're still doing it yeah I would like to leave, but I'm going to come back except africa is part of I am south african and the ubuntu. I want to take that with me. I want my children to know it. I want anyone who surrounds themselves with people or people because of other people,
Yes, I am because you cause when other people are doing better around you than you can do better and so forth and so forth and so on, and perhaps things like crime, which I'm sure, you've traveled the country maybe heard a bit about. Maybe that will go down
corruption, living like better education and morals and comfort. The idea of love is very powerful. I completely speechless with pride and love
I wish that your friends and many other south africans, your age, can
In this frame of mind to nobody
what are you feeling, but your country now feel immensely of tennis city spirit of survival
zealand's that has shown through in all the conversations with head. So all those people made me.
leave any humanitarian because
if they are leading the way quietly without bravado but they're, the rock of the nation. I think what I'm conscious of more than I've ever been is the giant inescapable fact of south african life politics. The sizing know is the level of inequality and the degree to which the elite have become separated from the people and how corruption has taken a grip on this country, something
I didn't believe, would happen that maybe I was neither back them with her two years ago. Were all naive. We believed in their nelson mandela, dream
time of dreams is used, is excellent, but I
as you are by the kind of people that we ve meant, that the kind of people I met thirty.
nearly forty years ago when I first set foot here and cape, and this
always been great on providing you with people to counter the despair. But that being said
I worry, I'm really worried for the future of this place. Yeah I'm in the is no doubt we need to be worried and if we're not worried that it means we see
caring and if you stop carrying it means your conscience dies
or short reminded me of the fast seen that we are still living in the legacy of apartheid. So people we must never forget where this inequality.
it comes from I dont forget it believe me not fall from the sky. The key thing is: how do we get ourselves selves out of this situation? Maybe if I was living here- and if this was my futures for kids, where I would need to be optimistic because contemplating the alternative- which is a country that sleds deeper into inequality deeper into corruption, is too frightening. He invented without hope. You attend
You need to be hoped preparing to depart south africa now on a perfect. So.
in spring day. I remember
leaving the country in ninety ninety four and a text message of farewell that milton sent me the line from andrea,
I was the land that is happening inside us that money
you can take away, not know you and ourselves. South africa did happen inside us as a struggle between hope for democracy and fear of civil war. Now the fight for equality and justice against corruption and cynicism, and it hangs in the balance I'm fertile keen the children of Paradise, was presented by me with milton and cozy. The producer was John murphy. It was mixed by james beer
The production coordination was gemma Ashman and the editor was penny murphy, something mysterious plagues county mayo on the west coast of ireland and its legendary gaelic football team. I believe in the cars yeah. I think it's rail, is it just superstition or could there be more to it? Sometimes, I think, does something sinners
we're gonna. What do we need to do so when an online fun of them? I have listened to the curious to
of the mayo curse on amazingly
stories from the BBC world service, sir,
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Transcript generated on 2023-12-08.