To pay tribute to Human Rights Day on Sunday (21 March 2010) SABC2 will be broadcasting a special documentary about Robert Sobukwe, his life and his role in Sharpeville on 21 March 1960.
It airs from 10h00 to 11h00.
More about it:
For many South Africans, the events at Sharpeville on 21 March, 1960 are an important and painful reminder of the hardships and injustices suffered by millions of people under apartheid, and the consequences of taking actions into their own hands at that time. But rarely is attention given to the man who lit the first fire that eventually led to the final demise of apartheid - Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe.
In this new 48-minute documentary entitled Sobukwe: The day that changed South Africa, the extraordinary achievements of Sobukwe in the history of South Africa will finally be brought to life.
The documentary, to be shown on this 50th Anniversary of Sharpeville Day, is a shortened version of a feature-length docu-drama that will premiere in September 2010.
Sobukwe’s life was distinguished by firsts: he was a man born to change people’s lives, and to challenge the way things were. He single-handedly designed the first ever anti-pass action, and that decisive, never before executed action on March 21, 1960 resulted in the historic day which was for a long time known as Sharpeville Day before it became Human Rights Day.
His actions also led to the first ever suspension of the Pass Laws, to a State of Emergency, the first ever banning of all political organizations in South Africa, and the first armed struggle in the country.
He was prisoner number one on Robben Island, striking such fear in the heart of the apartheid government that a special statute was passed in Parliament, the Sobukwe Clause, to keep him in prison indefinitely, and to keep his ideas away from the world.
He was the only political prisoner kept in solitary confinement for six solid years.
Where he was imprisoned in solitary confinement on Robben Island
But they never broke the spirit of this man, about whom there is not a single piece of film or video archive with his image and his voice.
Prior to the events at Sharpeville, he launched a campaign urging black South Africans to assert their true identity, forcing white people to call them by their names, instead of “boy”, “girl”, “nanny”, etc. He spearheaded a movement that would cripple the apartheid economy, and lead to the expulsion of South Africa from the Commonwealth and the UN.
For these and countless other achievements, Sobukwe was a giant in the political landscape, not just in South Africa, but internationally where his name stood alongside such liberation stalwarts as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah, Che Guevarra, Fidel Castro, and Frantz Fanon.
His actions earned South Africa the wrath of the world’s disgust, and he was once internationally the most popular political prisoner from this country. The ripple created by the stone Sobukwe cast became the tidal wave that finally sank the apartheid ship.
Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe defined an era, refined an ethos - Pan-Africanism: which gave rise to Black Consciousnes.
This 48-minute documentary hopes to restore the name of Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe to its rightful place on the world map.