Verwoerd/International anti-apartheid protests
Coming up on
Special Assignment tonight (2 November 2016):
Dismantling Verwoerd's Apartheid
2016, the year that marks half a century since Dr. Hendrik F. Verwoerd’s assassination. Former South African prime minister; staunch Afrikaner nationalist; widely regarded as the architect of Apartheid.
This year also marks extraordinary reminders of a society still deeply divided along racial lines - with among others, an explosion of racist storms on social media platforms set off by Durban property agent, Penny Sparrow; hair protests led by teenagers at schools that push race identity to the top of the national agenda; and across university campuses a new social movement for transformation and inclusiveness driven by mostly young, black South Africans.
In this first part of a two part Special Assignment series, the show unpacks the socio-economic legacy left by Verwoerd and his apartheid scheme, half a century after he was murdered in parliament by a mixed-race parliamentary messenger, Dimitris Tsafendas.
The show revisits archive footage from the 1950’s to modern day South Africa, to highlight through speeches and other documented visual material, the policies and legislation envisioned by Verwoerd from the time he was appointed as Minister of Native Affairs in 1950 until his death on 6 September 1966. We also track the growing resistance movement against his apartheid regime.
In an interview with Special Assignment, one of Verwoerd’s grandsons, Wynand Boshoff shares his views on his grandfather’s legacy in post-apartheid South Africa. “I’m really not into apologising. One doesn’t apologise for a system that somebody that you descend from, dealt with in a certain way as if that person created that system. Because it’s not difficult to look at the system and say
that’s bad.”
Through several interviews with social commentators, the show connects the dots from the apartheid system’s demise in the 1990’s to the current socio-economic ills that still dominate our relatively young democracy.
“Apartheid was such an entrenched social system, it had such devastating consequences and its legacy will stay with us for a very, very long time” says Sara Gon from the SA Institute for Race Relations.
In part one of
Dismantling Verwoerd's South Africa
the show asks: how do we undo the legacy of apartheid?
Special Assignment is on SABC3 on Tuesdays at 21h30.