| Long Nights Journey Into Day |
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"Seven boys left home one morning for work - and they never returned." Those seven boys, later referred to as the Gugulethu Seven, turned up on television that night dead. The news labelled them terrorists that had engaged in a gun battle with the SAP and their mothers had to watch their dead children being dragged on the ground in front of the world to see. "That's my son!" One of the mothers exclaimed as she watched the news. As I purchase my ticket for the award-winning documentary Long Nights Journey Into Day on four stories, out of the thousands that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission(TRC) uncovered, I ask the ticket seller a question. It's a question that has become a bit of a hobby actually, when watching African films. "How many people have come to see it?". He tells me that there aren't that many and then he proceeds to say that more black people have come to see it than white people. "They should be the ones seeing it." I say. He concurs. I am fully aware of the flack the TRC took. People questioned whether it was really worth it. Others wanted to move on and not have the ghosts of apartheid hanging over the birth of the New South Africa. Coming from a country where there wasn't such a thing as a TRC - I supported it. I am aware of the mood of the country. A country where for weeks we were burdened with `a plot' to oust the president. If two or three members in a party don't agree-its not a plot! These are the elements of a democracy, new or old. Those seven boys left their home that morning never to return so that there could be a democracy, and not a demonstration of craze as Fela Kuti once sang. It seems like the country could be in a demonstration of craze. There is a Popcorn combo that I purchase and I proceed, with my two friends to watch the movie. In the cinema I embark on another hobby of mine-how much box office is the movie taking in for the 8.15 showing we are watching. Before the film starts, the three of us make up R78.00. When the film starts there are ten of us in the audience. R780.00. Wonder how much Pearl Harbour took? We are the only black people. The people to our left are from France. I allow the movie to penetrate my very being. Not satisfied with the obvious responses I knew I would have, I wanted more. I wanted to come out of the cinema and be able to say more than `it was brilliant'. I wanted something to shake me. I didn't want to emerge with the usual `man, I didn't know' type response. I knew. I wanted to know more. "Intense and moving" the Village Voice says of the film. "Devastatingly effective" says the Village Walk. Effective in doing what? Making people aware? Making people more pissed off than before? Healing the wounds? The former Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu says that the TRC was about the promotion of reconciliation not the achievement of reconciliation. I read a review of this movie where the reviewer said the film offers no solutions. And out of the blue comes what I had been looking for. It is very clear and devastatingly effect when the mother of one of the boys granted amnesty for the killing of American student Amy Biehl says that she feels `in-between'. Sure she has her son but there is another woman out there who has lost her daughter. To hell with the politics of the situation. Someone else has lost a child. This mother paints a picture saying that whenever Amy Biehl's mother sets the table she would always have a feeling that someone is missing. When the mother of the one of the Gugulethu Seven tells the black policeman who killed her son that she has no forgiveness for him. That he could stand there and kill innocent children of his own kind. She tells him to look at her. Her skin is frail. She tells him "I used to be fat." That shook me. I let it play in mind like a stuck record. I used to be fat. I used to be fat. How many others `used to be fat'? I remember a story a mother once told me. Her son had been going out at night. She suspected that he was involved in some political activity and she didn't know how to stop him. When it became clear that she couldn't stop him she devised a plan. She would wait for him to sneak out of the house, and dressed in a heavy jacket and scarf she would follow him. She told me "if I can't stop him, I will definitely watch over him". The fact that the killer of Mathew Goniwe and Fort Calata read the Autobiography Of Nelson Mandela and watched Mississippi Burning(a film with its own problems) and had a change of heart is encouraging. But as Robert McBride says "no one has come to apologise to me." There was a time when there was a call for white people to sign a register saying they are sorry for apartheid. There were strong arguments for and against the petition. I believe that yes, the first step is confessing. Getting it off your chest. I went out and killed an innocent child. I want to ask the mother for forgiveness. She forgives me, or in the case of Mathew Goniwe's wife she says "forgiveness is not my job." I don't agree with the reviewer who says that the film offers no solutions. I believe that the film should be sent to the parliamentarians and the people in power. They should take a day off (the rand might fall for a day) and watch this Grand Jury Prize 2000 Sundance Film Festival winner. The guy driving around in his 4 by 4 claiming he likes Mercedes and the Mayor that wants a R2.5 million salary should get that Popcorn combo and watch the movie. And once the film has finished go out and find those women, men and children that used to be fat and please for Gods sake feed them. Click here to read God is African, a story on Akin and his independent film God is African. And visit the Long Night's Journey into Day website on www.irisfilms.org |
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