March 19, 2013 • 35 mins
After WWII, while the rest of the world grew more socially progressive, the government of South Africa turned inward to focus its attention on domination of the white minority over the non-white majority. It took an internal struggle and the voice of the world to finally end the terrible practice of "apartness."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you should know front House stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that
makes this stuff you should know the podcast. I've been
working on. My Africana accent was that it sort of.
(00:24):
I've also been told by some people Chuck, we love
your accents because they're kind of bad, but they're funny.
And other people said, oh my god, please don't ever
do accents again. Oh, you gotta keep doing it. Of course,
people can't tell me what to do. I think your
African or um is a little rough, you know, on
the edges, especially compared to your Italian. Sure that's easy though,
(00:46):
but um, that's no problem. So do you want to
say a word in African er? I think I know
that you know one apartoteid yes, and it means a
partners in Africana and yeah in Afrikaans, sure, which is
the language? Yeah? Well where did I get African er? Uh?
That is the person is an Africana the speak Afrikaans.
(01:09):
So in Afrikaans, apartheid means a partners and you capitalize it.
And the reason you capitalize it is because for about
fifty years, a little less than fifty years, it was
a national policy in South Africa and it was brutal
and awful, and the whole world said, you know what,
(01:31):
South Africa, we judge you, and for good reason. Yeah.
I remember being a kid, and we'll get to this later.
But the artist against Apartheid was the first time I
ever heard that word as a young teenager, Bano telling me,
don't play some city. Sun City was built in eighty one. Okay.
Sun City, first of all, is a resort in South Africa.
(01:52):
And you know, little Stephen Van's aunt of the Sopranos
and the E Street Band wrote the song called Ain't
Gonna play some City, got all these people to sing
on it, sort of in the It was like you
two to Curtis Below, to um Africa Boombada to Peter
Gabriel did like so many people are on that song,
(02:12):
all these Miles Davis was on there like everybody was.
It was a good song. Um, it was a good
ish song, Okay, but it was like I ain't gonna
play some City. And not only was it a song,
but it was like a movement and in an agreement,
like a creed that you were kind of signing. So
who played. I saw that Elton John and Queen and
Linda Ronstadt played during apartheid, Sinatra played. I mean yeah,
(02:35):
they knew ahead of time that there was like a
you know, Sun City was not a good place to
be and it was in apartheid. It was a good
place to be if you were in a pro apartheid
South African with a lot of money, because it was
a very nice resort and you want to gamble and
they would get big name acts. But um, if you
went there and played there and made money there, even
(02:57):
if you didn't make money there, actually, um, the you
when had an anti apartheid unit and they kept track
of who was playing there and they would publish a
blacklist and there was a huge, huge um backlash against it.
Most people were just like sorry, sorry. If you said publicly,
I'm very sorry that I went and played Sun City,
I'm not gonna go to apartheid South Africa again. Um,
(03:20):
as a performer, they would take you off the list,
but it was still like that. It's really smacked of
McCarthyism because they used a blacklist for suspected communists in
the entertainment industry. And this is the same thing, but
in this case, in this case they were on the
side of right, the black listeners were. But but yeah, so, um,
if you went to Sun City, you ended up on
(03:40):
this list. And actually, really interestingly, Tim Reid Venus fly Trap,
he went down to South Africa with Howard Hussman, Johnny
Fever w Carapean Cincinnati because w CA Arapian Cincinnati was
a really huge hit down there. Yeah, so they had
Venis and uh and Johnny Fever come down and Tim
Reid is one of the first African Americans invited to
(04:05):
apartheid South Africa to not perform like this was just
a publicity tour, and he spent the whole time speaking
out against apartheid. And he still ended up on the
UN's blacklist because he received like a per diem or
something during his his publicity tour there, and he uh,
he spoke out. There's a Chicago Tribune article from the time,
(04:26):
from like night six that interviews him and he was
a really smart guy speaking out against this blacklist, or
at the very least, like how um clumsy it was
that they weren't using a scalpel at all. They were
just like, oh, you went to South Africa and they
gave you some money and now you're blacklisted. He's like,
I was speaking out against apartheid, Like you get what
are you doing? So let's talk. Let's talk apartheid. Let's
(04:48):
where did this come from, Chuck. I mean, it's it
was instituted in but it was way older than that. Yeah,
racial suppression was going on sort of from the seventeenth
century on in Africa, or at least in Southern Africa.
And it wasn't South Africa at the time. We should
point out. We'll get to that though. Um. But the
Dutch came there in the seventeenth century just as a
(05:11):
little stop off station. They wanted to set up on
the Spice Route Dutch East Indy Company. They're like, we
need a place to kick back a little bit and
rest on this trip. And so I was about to say,
they said, do you mind? They I don't think they asked.
They did not. They just sort of set up shop there.
And they were not there to colonize um. Initially, it
was just just to set up a station and um.
(05:35):
But the because they were Europeans, they did bring um
along with them. The thought that white people are supreme
to black people with them, that's right. Um, So that
notion is immediately set up, like, hey, we're better than you.
You can't tell us what to do. We have guns,
(05:55):
and uh, we're more quote unquote advanced if if you
following those European lines of what advanced is. And because
they were Europeans during the Age of Exploration, they said,
let's colonize anyway, let's do it. So they did, um,
and they started setting up settlements that weren't united but
we're basically the Dutch and then later on the British
(06:19):
into a much lesser extent of French. UM basically saying
just undergoing a land grab that involved basically taking land
from the indigenous people there and then setting up farms.
Sounds like another country. It sounds really familiar, doesn't it. Yeah.
They basically would try and negotiate for land and if
that broke down, they were like, all right, we're taking it, right,
and then they would take the land, turning and turning
(06:41):
the land into plantations, start growing stuff for export, and
then the people would say, um, we're starving out here,
and the Dutch people would say, well, come on in
and work for us for like next to nothing at
the very least, you'll live long enough to till our fields.
And that's how the whole thing began. Yeah, basically they
would end up killing the fields that they at one
point owned themselves or used themselves as slaves. And this
(07:07):
was the Dutch at first until about the mid seventeen hundreds.
Then uh, British activity picked up in the region and
um they uh you know at the time, it was
I think you said, just like various separate societies farming,
live in a grarian lifestyle, ranching, hunter gathering, and then
the Dutch and then the Brits came down there with
(07:29):
their own slaves and took the land and said, you
know what, We're gonna battle with each other over this area.
And eventually Britain gained control in the early nineteenth century
from the Dutch even but the Dutch were still there
sort of running things. Is that how it worked. Yeah,
there were way more Dutch settlers than British, but the
British had managed to gain control of it and know
(07:50):
it was a British colony and they said, but slavery
is not legal, no, but you can be uh you
you are a servant. Basically and we're going to codify this.
And now for the first time in this area, UM,
blacks were legally subservient to whites. So instead of master slave,
that was master servant. But big. And even though the
British it was a British colony, it was still basically
(08:11):
run and operated by the Dutch. That's right, UM, And
some Dutch didn't like that, so they pressed further and
further inward and UM ultimately uh, creating more and more
of an area for the future South Africa by dominating
these tribes with guns, germ, steel, you know that whole thing. UM.
(08:32):
And then around about eighteen sixty something really big happened.
A little bit into the interior. They discovered diamonds and
gold and said, oh, we're staying. Yeah, and they said,
you know, we know you love farming and all that
good stuff, but we think you'd be much happier working
in a mine for next to nothing. At the very least,
it would make us happier if you were working in
our minds, that's right. And you know what we're gonna
(08:54):
um brutalize you. We're gonna segregate you. Uh, We're gonna
give you the most dangerous shot and humiliate you and
do cavity searches and you know what, Now you have
to have a passbook to go to your job as
a minor, and uh, you're gonna be paid a lot less.
And the passbooks. The reason we mentioned that is it
(09:15):
soon became a staple that you couldn't go anywhere you
weren't supposed to go without a passbook. Right. It was
initially started as a work thing though in the in
the minds of South Africa, that's where apartheid was born.
And a lot of the apartheid techniques like like you say,
pass books, um, and just the general degradation of blacks
(09:36):
in South Africa area. Um, it all began. I mean
it was already in place, but just the brutality of it,
I take it really picked up in the minds. Um.
So that was what the eighteen sixties and that was
pretty much the way it was. Um. It was a
British colony in South Africa. It was. It wasn't South
(09:58):
Africa yet, but it was a British colony, Dutch re
ruling it. The blacks, Um, they're the African the indigenous
indigenous natives, um were on the losing end. Of all
of this in a very brutal fashion. And then in
the early nine hundreds and I think nineteen o eight, um,
the people who were running this British colony, the Dutch,
said hey man, we want a little more authority here. Yeah,
(10:22):
And they were at this point they were Afrikaaner. Like
in the past century, they had changed a lot. They
had this weird hybrid language that developed, and they were
not they were Dutch in heritage, but they were starting
to become a new people in southern Africa, which is
African or they probably felt about as Dutch as like
you and I feel British, right, you know, yeah, that's
(10:44):
a good point. But yeah, so yeah, they were like
a whole new, whole new group. But the basis of
this was that they were a whole new group who
had grown up in charge of another group and they
wanted to make sure that they had a free hand
in dealing with these other sub classes. Um. And also
I want to say, like, any time you hear me
say subclasses, I'm making air quotes, everybody. Yeah, and when
(11:06):
I say big difference between master slave and master servant,
I was being sarcastic. We're anti apartheid, yeah, okay. Um,
so the the these Afrikaners running the show sent a
new constitution to Britain, and Britain said, okay, go ahead, Um,
we're gonna go ahead and grant this. It's going to
be called the South Africa Act of nineteen ten. And
(11:28):
with that, British decreed that the state of South Africa
was born phil British colony, but it was officially under
African or control. That's right. And uh, oh yeah, one
other thing black people can't hold off as ever. Yeah,
that's like the first of what would be many, many,
many restrictions. And that's a huge one, because all of
(11:49):
a sudden, you have an all white boye made up
of white people who feel that this is their white
man's burden to keep you from being shiftless and lazy
and thieving and just killing yourselves and cutting off your
own hands and killing one another. It's up to the
white man to make sure you don't do that. And
(12:09):
we're going to keep you, keep you safe by subjugating you.
And the first way we're gonna do that is to
just have an all white government. That's right. And uh
and the second thing we're gonna do is we're gonna
take your land because even though we only make up
of the population as white people, we need the land.
So we're gonna shuffle seven I'm sorry of the people
(12:32):
on to seven percent of the land, really crappy land,
really bad land. And UM. That was under the leadership
of General Louis or Louis or Louis both a first
Prime Minister of South Africa, and the Native Lands Act
of nine basically was when they said, you know what,
(12:53):
We're gonna move all these communities. If we kill you
along the way or you die, no big deal, if
your whole life is just didn't no big deal. And
we're essentially going to shove you onto these tiny parcels
of crappy land. So that began what's called the segregation period.
But you can't go here, this is white land. UM.
(13:13):
And after during the segregation period between the Nine Lands
Act in the fifties or UM, a bunch of other
things happened for the UM the blacks who are who
came to be called Bantus Indigenous Africans UM. They lost
(13:33):
the right to vote in the thirties. In the twenties,
they had lost the right to unionize and basically they're
just being pushed further and further out of a meaningful
participation in society. Yeah. They they they tried to hamper
their access to education even early on, and fired them
from jobs even if they were totally more skilled than
(13:54):
a white worker. Yeah, if you were a skilled craftsman
and you had apprenticed, you couldn't you couldn't carry out
your craft any longer. But legally they could go in
and be like, you know what, there's a white guy
who we think is better for this job, so you're fired. Yeah,
because that was the government, right. Um, and this was
even before the African or Nationalist Party. This is before
(14:15):
apartheid officially. That didn't come around until Wayne Again, with
an all white government that had been in power for
thirty five years. This extreme right wing, basically a fringe movement,
the Afrikaan or Nationalist Movement, came to power and they
officially instituted what we call apartheid. There are apartheid policy
(14:37):
starting in ninety eight, but really kicking off in nineteen
fifty with the what the Population Registration Act, right, Yeah,
and this was under Prime Minister DF Malin at the time,
and with the Population and Registration Act is when they
created officially the Bantu like you said, and named the
indigenous black population. Uh. There. So there's Bantou, there's white,
(14:59):
and and there's colored, which is mixed race, and you
have to register yourself and be legally classified as one
of these three races. Everyone was everybody. If you're white,
goodness for you, Yeah, because you've got of the land. Yeah.
If you're Bontu or uh, mixed race, then bad luck
for you. Right and then um at first Indians were
(15:21):
left out and Indians, I guess because it was a
British colony, uh, since India was also a British colony.
South Africa was kind of a place to be force
for Indians, including Gandhi, who was one of the early
protesters of the segregationist idea um and was imprisoned for
I think twenty years in South Africa. Yeah, he was,
(15:41):
or he was imprisoned while he was there for twenty years.
He spent part of it in prison for protesting segregation
of course. But then so ultimately Indians were excluded as foreigners.
But then just to keep problems from happenings, to keep
the bureaucracy going, they were added as a fourth race. Um,
(16:02):
you could not get married between races. If you were
Bantu and loved with someone of mixed race, you couldn't
even marry them. Very restrictive. And then next came another
act called the Group Areas Act, and this really escalated
the segregation um because now you needed past books essentially
passports to go from one area to another. Some you
(16:25):
weren't even allowed in. And um that even went further
in the Bantu Homelands Homelands Act of ninety one, which
basically said, you know what, wherever your your area is
in South Africa, that is now your homeland. And you're
not even South African anymore. Yeah, if you're if you're
bannt to you live in this area. If you're a
(16:46):
banned too married to a colored person, the your colored
spouse lives in a different area. Yeah, your family's just
ripped apart. Now, well they took away. Basically they said,
you're not in South Africa. You're and we're allowing you
to stay here. Basically if you stay in this one
area that your past book says that you can stay in, right,
because you can't stay here because you're not alone, you're
no longer a member of this country. Believable, Like I
(17:09):
drew exclamation points next to that one, just because like
they literally moved in, took over these people and then said,
you're not even a part of this country right that
we have established. So they have they've been pushed out
of participation in society. The um. Anybody who's not white,
Um is now forced onto a reservation essentially. Um. And
(17:33):
then they really kind of started indoctrinating the next generation
with the Ban to Education Act of nineteen fifty three.
And basically if you were banned too, you would be
put into a school where the student teacher ratio was
about fifty six to one on average. You went to
school three hours a day. Um they did in two shifts.
A teacher would see two different classes, Um, three hours
(17:55):
for one and three hours for another, and you would
be taught basically how um they the history of your
people was that you were you were kind of dumb
and meandering, and you hadn't really done anything with the
land before and um, how you were reliant on the
white people who came to rescue you and your people. Um.
You were taught how you could work in a factory.
(18:17):
And that's about as good as it got for you. Um.
And basically they were taught to be servile and better
servants to the the white um afrikanners. Yeah. Well that
was the plan at least, but it backfired because in
the nineteen fifties and sixties, instead of becoming more docile,
(18:37):
they rallied and became uh more upset uh and basically
he raged against the machine. In the nineteen fifties and sixties,
at the same time that the U s Civil rights
movement was going on, the same thing was kind of
starting to happen in South Africa, and it was the
beginning of what would be you know, thirty years end
(19:00):
of apartheid. Yeah, I guess you could say, yeah, um
people got mad, yeah, and rightly so. Yeah. And this
wasn't just uh indigenous people. There were also white liberals
at the time, just like here in the US, that
were very much against apartheid and also you know suppressed
when they tried to like you know, raise awareness or
(19:23):
fight back. Right because one of the things about um,
the apartheid government, it wasn't just racial segregation. Um. They were,
like I said, extremely right wing and they were very
much into isolationism. They kept a very tight control over
what their their population, white or non white, UM had
(19:45):
access to as far as the news went music music.
Have you seen searching for sugar Man. It's a good one, UM,
and it was you saw what they did with like
there was a record on there was a song on
his record Rodriguez yea and m. He scratched the song
the vinyl so they couldn't be played. They did stuff
like that. UM just won the Academy Award. And we
(20:09):
don't want to spoil anything though, because it unfolds in
a really great, mysterious way. It's good. It's a good documents,
great documentary, and that's what inspired this decision to do this. Actually, right, UM,
So the government was fairly close to total terrian, Like
if you descended against the government, white, black, otherwise you
would go to jail. UM. But despite this, and despite
(20:31):
the brutality that the police were engaged in, like UM
there was a for example, there was a strike in
v Unarmed black miners went on strike, peaceful protest. A
thousand people were killed by the police. Yeah, they would
just open fire on crowds. Yeah. So this is right,
(20:52):
and this is one of the reasons why UM, I
think people were so so resistant to being indoctrinated into
apartheid mentality. Um because of the in part because of
the brutality of the police tactics. But so let's talk
about this UM. In the sixties, Uh, like you were saying,
when the U s Civil rights movement was was really
(21:13):
starting to brew and and take shape, UM, Nelson Mandela
emerged as a member of the African National Congress, huge organization,
and then there was also the Pan African Pan Africanist Congress,
and they were basically peaceful protest groups that were set
up to counter the apartheid philosophy. Yeah, and like we said,
(21:36):
even though it was peaceful, it didn't matter. The Sharps
Sharpville massacre in nineteen sixty thousand black Africans left their
pass books at home and said, you know what, We're
just gonna go to the police station and turn ourselves
in because we don't have our pass books. What are
you gonna do processes all. No, they're gonna open fire
on the crowd, killed sixty nine people, uh, wounded hundreds apparently.
(22:00):
And then they said, you know what, We're going to
ban public gatherings then, and they also banned the African
National Congress in the Pan Africans like, you're all illegitimate
now and Nelson Mandela, you're going to jail, not yet
now yet they drove the Pan Africanist Congress in the
African he went to jail, right, but in nineteen sixty
they drove him underground. And as a result, these groups
(22:23):
went from being peaceful to becoming actually they formed paramilitary
wings and Mandela um led the African National Congresses guerilla wing.
And he actually later on said, yeah, we were we
were guerillas and possibly terrorists, and like there were human
rights violations by my group and I regret that. Yeah,
(22:44):
but they were good theroists right. Um, but he was
jailed for for uh, we'll send it to a life
in prison and remain in prison for thirty years. And
most people, unless you're super young, remember Nelson Mandela for
Nelson Mandela being a rallying cry up until like freaking eighties,
which is ridiculous that this is still going on then,
but um, that's the way it went. There. Um another protest,
(23:09):
peaceful Soweto. Um. This time it was students and it
was because they were trying to make Afrikaans the primary
language in Black upper schools, even though not many of
them even spoke it. So what good is that? So
they went to protest this and against open fire. Two
children were killed this time and it started a bunch
(23:30):
of riots and in the end three thousand people up
to three thousand says between five seventy five and three thousand,
probably depends on who you're asking. Uh, we're killed by
the police. Um. And again just following the same script
that they did with sharp Ville in nineteen sixty, the
government said all right, all any distent groups are completely banned,
(23:52):
you know, outright um, and then included the South African
Students Organization led by a guy named Steve Ico. And
Steve Ico had he was medical student. He was like thirty,
I think when he died. UM. He had found what
was called the Black Consciousness movement and it was basically like, uh,
it was teaching African self worth, countering everything that was
(24:12):
taught through the Bantu Education Act and everything you learned
in school, UM, African self reliance, economic self reliance, UM.
And it had spread outside of Africa. He was a
pretty big figure and he was pulled over with the
Buddy and a bunch of um Anti apartheid UH pamphlets,
and the police arrested him. They beat him, they left
(24:33):
him with the head wound, and he died of his injuries.
Um and when Steve Ico died that was that changed everything. Yeah,
he was detained under the Terrorism Act nineteen sixty seven,
which basically said, if we suspect you being a terrorist,
we can detain you for up to sixty days, and
then we can renew that sixty days, by the way,
(24:55):
indefinitely without telling anyone, without releasing who's there. And it
was basically a way to make the people disappear. Usually
if you were detained under this act, you were never
heard from again. And Ico eventually found himself in a
coma and UH because of torture. And then eventually they said,
after about three weeks, you know, we should probably take
the guy to a prison with a hospital at least.
(25:19):
So they threw his naked body in the back of
a truck to take him to a hospital and he died.
They said it was a hunger strike. It was actually
brain hemorrhage from being beaten upside the head. And years
later Denzel Washington would play him and cry freedom, and
Peter Gabriel wrote the awesome song Ko and Um Tribe
(25:39):
called quest has Um Steve Beco song. Yeah, stir it up. Yeah. Um,
so the Souto uprising, the and the police killings of
those two children, UH was followed right on the heels
by Steve Beco's death, which was a big deal, like
around the world. Yeah, it was the UM the US
(26:00):
ambassadors South Africa, I think and probably was a huge
protest move went to Steve Beco's funeral. Um there was Yeah,
Steve Beco dying was that was a big deal. Yeah,
and we should shout out to Helen Susman, shout out.
She was the one voice of reason uh in South
Africa's all white parliament. She was the one voice anti
(26:22):
apartheid voice. And she was like if you look her
up today, mean, she's an amazing, amazing woman. She just
died a few years ago, but she was at the
funeral and um, yeah, this is when it became like
a thing around the world like hate. You know what,
We're gonna start pulling our embassies out of South Africa,
We're gonna start boycotting UH sanctions against South Africa economic sanctions.
(26:47):
And this was happening with the United States Great Britain,
other Western nations, and basically South Africa became you know,
the evil Empire, like exposed. It was pretty cool by
the by. Finally, in nine six the US Congress got
its act together enough to pass the Comprehensive Anti Apartheid Act,
(27:07):
and it banned any new investment, UM, any new business
setting up and dealing in trade with South Africa. Um.
South Africa was banned from doing business here in the
U S. So South African airlines couldn't land at any
US airport. Um. Yeah, big time. The rand fell in
value is a big deal. Um. And Reagan vetoed it actually,
(27:28):
and his veto was overridden by Congress. That's how that's
how much, that's how badly they wanted to do it. Um.
And it was a very important thing. This was right
in the middle of Um. This is like when we
were kids. You remember that, like that that Keith Hearing
um poster from South Africa. Um. There was like the
income place, Sun City, remember that one. Yeah, it was
(27:50):
a there was a it was a big deal. The
whole world was opposed to South Africa. UM. There was
this great thing called divestment that actually may have really
been a thing that killed apartheid in South Africa was
the deal. So divestment is and it's going on now.
But um, with apartheid, it was basically where people like
(28:11):
it started with colleges. Colleges have huge endowments that are
heavily invested in all sorts of stuff. And they said,
you know what, we're not going to invest in anything
that has anything to do with South Africa anymore. Coca Cola,
if you're doing business in South Africa, we're not gonna
invest in any whoever. Um. And so they divested rather
than invested. They got all their money out and a
(28:32):
lot of university a lot of universities did this, and
they did it at the prompting and some of their students,
like in Harvard, they the students erected a shaneytown to
show what the people who lived in the towns in
South Africa were living like. And and got all these
endowments to to start divesting. And I think uh CAL
(28:52):
had the biggest one. They divested three billion dollars from
the South African economy. And um, they think that that
was the thing that really like like open the bleeding
go bears. Yeah, So, um, this divestment combined with this
international political pressure all over the world, and South Africa
still says, go to hell, we're not getting rid of
(29:14):
apartheime for years still and yeah, and then finally it
was what, uh, well, nineteen eighty nine is when the
big turning point came. That's when F. W. De Clerk
became president of apartheid South Africa. And between eighty nine
and ninety three is when he basically repealed everything on
the books and said this is going in a different direction.
(29:36):
Now let's release Nelson Mandela. And in fact, when we
have our first democratic election in nineteen Nelson Mandela wins.
So what a great ending to that story. And uh,
despite being in prison for thirty years. Uh. On May tenth,
(29:57):
when Mandela was giving his his speech, he's closed by
speaking in Afrikaans. This isn't his inaugurations. Yeah, which is
like the fact that even spoken that tongue. To me,
it says a lot about the man. And he said,
what what has past has past? And here's a Nobel
Peace prize. Mr Mandela and Mr di Clerk, like you
(30:18):
both get it in and I like the article pointed
out it was a shockingly peaceful transition. Uh. And I'm
sure there are still many many more years that are
needed for the healing. Uh. You don't get over or
something like that overnight if it's been hundreds of years.
But um, I think things are definitely headed in the
right direction now. Yeah. Well, one of the things that
(30:40):
they did was they set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
which is like basically a tribunal that heard um stories
of human rights violations that gave victims a voice to
say it in public, like this happened to me. Um.
In some instances, people who perpetrated these could be prosecuted.
They could also be forgiven publicly by this court, this tribunal. Um.
(31:00):
It was a really good move to like kind of
help this national healing because yeah, all of a sudden,
Apartheid's gone over a four year period. But I mean
there was a lot of people who were kind of
into that and they did a lot of stuff and
they're not protected by the government anymore, and like a
lot of bad things happened to a lot of people
are still alive, Like what do you do? Uh? And
I think that was a really good move to to
(31:23):
move not just the government but also the society to
post apartheid um life. Yeah, I'd like to hear from
people in South Africa about the state of things today.
And watch Searching for Sugar Man. People. It's really like,
through this great story of music encapsulates this whole time
period really really well. Right and then, uh, I guess
(31:44):
ever since the Aliens landed over Johannesburg, that's kind of
taken up a lot of their a lot of their attention.
District nine, Yeah, which was really based on apartheid pretty
much wasn't What was that the inspiration for them? That
was a good movie. Yeah, so watch that, watch District nine,
Searching for Sugarman, and watch Cry Freedom and go listen
(32:07):
to Tribe called Quest. Peter Gabriel, I haven't even I
have not listened or seen the Rugby movie yet. Morgan
Freeman place Mandela with Damon. Yeah, what is it? Invictus? Yeah? Yeah,
I need I need to see now. Uh, okay, let's
sit for apartheid hunt goodness? Uh do you want to do?
(32:29):
H A word from our sponsor? Yeah, we got listener
mail coming up, but work from our sponsor first. So
now it's time for listener mail, right, that's right, Josh,
I'm gonna call this surfs up. I just listened to
how surfing works as someone who serves three hundred days
a year all over the world and teaches surfing for
(32:50):
a living. I just wanted to say that you guys
did an excellent job for two guys who don't surf
in a very limited experience with it. Your definitions and
descriptions were pretty much spot on, and I would have
to agree with you Chuck that it is very difficult
to learn. It has one of the slowest, most miserable
learning curves of any sport. I always tell people that
if you don't enjoy sucking at it, then you won't
(33:10):
enjoy surfing. So quickly. Did you surf on your vacation? Yeah?
I did? Then how did you Dot waiting to ask
I got up? You me was watching from the shore
and she agrees, um that I did get up at
least once possible. She says, possibly twice, But I, um,
I only stand by one, and by by get up,
(33:32):
I mean I was virtually crouching and then fell off
after like five seconds. And how many days did you
try it? I just one and I didn't even I
didn't even take a lesson. Okay, you just went out there,
do you know how well? Our podcast exactly. Yeah, that's
how I figured out how to do it. I did
kind of, but um, I remember we were talking about
how it's very easy to like get on your hands
(33:53):
and knees and then get up, but you don't want
to learn that technique. That's that's what I learned. Yeah,
you gotta call before you can walk exactly. Also I
should clear up that in general, learning to surf on
a longboard is usually preferred, as he catch waves easier
and you're easier to stand up on them a short board.
But being that catching a wave is the hardest part
for beginners, you're usually better off learning that way. Did
(34:15):
you have a short board? Uh? Yeah, it was shortish shortage. Yeah,
it definitely wasn't a long board. They turn easier, but
turning his pointless if you can't catch the wave in
the first first place. So yeah, there was no turning
going on. Yeah, it was surf riding. Surf riding anyway.
I just want to say, good job guys. I'll be
teaching surfing all summer in Southampton, New York. If you're
(34:35):
up in New York this summer, hit me up. I'll
take you out for surf and that is Miles from
Santa Cruz. PS. Big Wednesday is the best movie ever.
Of course you think that because that's what surf first did. Um,
that's nice, Miles three days a year. Can you believe
that he's sounds like Miles has got a pretty decent
life if he's living in Santa Cruz and then teaching
(34:57):
in New York in the summers. Yeah. Um, thank for
running in, Miles. If you are an expert or you
do something that we've talked about three d days a year,
we want to hear from you because that pretty much
makes you an expert. Um. You can tweet to us
at s y s K podcast. You can join us
at Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You
can send us a an email right in to Stuff
(35:22):
Podcasts at Discovery dot com and check out our website
Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Does It how stuff Works
dot com. M
Welcome to you stuff you should know front House stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that
makes this stuff you should know the podcast. I've been
working on. My Africana accent was that it sort of.
(00:24):
I've also been told by some people Chuck, we love
your accents because they're kind of bad, but they're funny.
And other people said, oh my god, please don't ever
do accents again. Oh, you gotta keep doing it. Of course,
people can't tell me what to do. I think your
African or um is a little rough, you know, on
the edges, especially compared to your Italian. Sure that's easy though,
(00:46):
but um, that's no problem. So do you want to
say a word in African er? I think I know
that you know one apartoteid yes, and it means a
partners in Africana and yeah in Afrikaans, sure, which is
the language? Yeah? Well where did I get African er? Uh?
That is the person is an Africana the speak Afrikaans.
(01:09):
So in Afrikaans, apartheid means a partners and you capitalize it.
And the reason you capitalize it is because for about
fifty years, a little less than fifty years, it was
a national policy in South Africa and it was brutal
and awful, and the whole world said, you know what,
(01:31):
South Africa, we judge you, and for good reason. Yeah.
I remember being a kid, and we'll get to this later.
But the artist against Apartheid was the first time I
ever heard that word as a young teenager, Bano telling me,
don't play some city. Sun City was built in eighty one. Okay.
Sun City, first of all, is a resort in South Africa.
(01:52):
And you know, little Stephen Van's aunt of the Sopranos
and the E Street Band wrote the song called Ain't
Gonna play some City, got all these people to sing
on it, sort of in the It was like you
two to Curtis Below, to um Africa Boombada to Peter
Gabriel did like so many people are on that song,
(02:12):
all these Miles Davis was on there like everybody was.
It was a good song. Um, it was a good
ish song, Okay, but it was like I ain't gonna
play some City. And not only was it a song,
but it was like a movement and in an agreement,
like a creed that you were kind of signing. So
who played. I saw that Elton John and Queen and
Linda Ronstadt played during apartheid, Sinatra played. I mean yeah,
(02:35):
they knew ahead of time that there was like a
you know, Sun City was not a good place to
be and it was in apartheid. It was a good
place to be if you were in a pro apartheid
South African with a lot of money, because it was
a very nice resort and you want to gamble and
they would get big name acts. But um, if you
went there and played there and made money there, even
(02:57):
if you didn't make money there, actually, um, the you
when had an anti apartheid unit and they kept track
of who was playing there and they would publish a
blacklist and there was a huge, huge um backlash against it.
Most people were just like sorry, sorry. If you said publicly,
I'm very sorry that I went and played Sun City,
I'm not gonna go to apartheid South Africa again. Um,
(03:20):
as a performer, they would take you off the list,
but it was still like that. It's really smacked of
McCarthyism because they used a blacklist for suspected communists in
the entertainment industry. And this is the same thing, but
in this case, in this case they were on the
side of right, the black listeners were. But but yeah, so, um,
if you went to Sun City, you ended up on
(03:40):
this list. And actually, really interestingly, Tim Reid Venus fly Trap,
he went down to South Africa with Howard Hussman, Johnny
Fever w Carapean Cincinnati because w CA Arapian Cincinnati was
a really huge hit down there. Yeah, so they had
Venis and uh and Johnny Fever come down and Tim
Reid is one of the first African Americans invited to
(04:05):
apartheid South Africa to not perform like this was just
a publicity tour, and he spent the whole time speaking
out against apartheid. And he still ended up on the
UN's blacklist because he received like a per diem or
something during his his publicity tour there, and he uh,
he spoke out. There's a Chicago Tribune article from the time,
(04:26):
from like night six that interviews him and he was
a really smart guy speaking out against this blacklist, or
at the very least, like how um clumsy it was
that they weren't using a scalpel at all. They were
just like, oh, you went to South Africa and they
gave you some money and now you're blacklisted. He's like,
I was speaking out against apartheid, Like you get what
are you doing? So let's talk. Let's talk apartheid. Let's
(04:48):
where did this come from, Chuck. I mean, it's it
was instituted in but it was way older than that. Yeah,
racial suppression was going on sort of from the seventeenth
century on in Africa, or at least in Southern Africa.
And it wasn't South Africa at the time. We should
point out. We'll get to that though. Um. But the
Dutch came there in the seventeenth century just as a
(05:11):
little stop off station. They wanted to set up on
the Spice Route Dutch East Indy Company. They're like, we
need a place to kick back a little bit and
rest on this trip. And so I was about to say,
they said, do you mind? They I don't think they asked.
They did not. They just sort of set up shop there.
And they were not there to colonize um. Initially, it
was just just to set up a station and um.
(05:35):
But the because they were Europeans, they did bring um
along with them. The thought that white people are supreme
to black people with them, that's right. Um, So that
notion is immediately set up, like, hey, we're better than you.
You can't tell us what to do. We have guns,
(05:55):
and uh, we're more quote unquote advanced if if you
following those European lines of what advanced is. And because
they were Europeans during the Age of Exploration, they said,
let's colonize anyway, let's do it. So they did, um,
and they started setting up settlements that weren't united but
we're basically the Dutch and then later on the British
(06:19):
into a much lesser extent of French. UM basically saying
just undergoing a land grab that involved basically taking land
from the indigenous people there and then setting up farms.
Sounds like another country. It sounds really familiar, doesn't it. Yeah.
They basically would try and negotiate for land and if
that broke down, they were like, all right, we're taking it, right,
and then they would take the land, turning and turning
(06:41):
the land into plantations, start growing stuff for export, and
then the people would say, um, we're starving out here,
and the Dutch people would say, well, come on in
and work for us for like next to nothing at
the very least, you'll live long enough to till our fields.
And that's how the whole thing began. Yeah, basically they
would end up killing the fields that they at one
point owned themselves or used themselves as slaves. And this
(07:07):
was the Dutch at first until about the mid seventeen hundreds.
Then uh, British activity picked up in the region and
um they uh you know at the time, it was
I think you said, just like various separate societies farming,
live in a grarian lifestyle, ranching, hunter gathering, and then
the Dutch and then the Brits came down there with
(07:29):
their own slaves and took the land and said, you
know what, We're gonna battle with each other over this area.
And eventually Britain gained control in the early nineteenth century
from the Dutch even but the Dutch were still there
sort of running things. Is that how it worked. Yeah,
there were way more Dutch settlers than British, but the
British had managed to gain control of it and know
(07:50):
it was a British colony and they said, but slavery
is not legal, no, but you can be uh you
you are a servant. Basically and we're going to codify this.
And now for the first time in this area, UM,
blacks were legally subservient to whites. So instead of master slave,
that was master servant. But big. And even though the
British it was a British colony, it was still basically
(08:11):
run and operated by the Dutch. That's right, UM, And
some Dutch didn't like that, so they pressed further and
further inward and UM ultimately uh, creating more and more
of an area for the future South Africa by dominating
these tribes with guns, germ, steel, you know that whole thing. UM.
(08:32):
And then around about eighteen sixty something really big happened.
A little bit into the interior. They discovered diamonds and
gold and said, oh, we're staying. Yeah, and they said,
you know, we know you love farming and all that
good stuff, but we think you'd be much happier working
in a mine for next to nothing. At the very least,
it would make us happier if you were working in
our minds, that's right. And you know what we're gonna
(08:54):
um brutalize you. We're gonna segregate you. Uh, We're gonna
give you the most dangerous shot and humiliate you and
do cavity searches and you know what, Now you have
to have a passbook to go to your job as
a minor, and uh, you're gonna be paid a lot less.
And the passbooks. The reason we mentioned that is it
(09:15):
soon became a staple that you couldn't go anywhere you
weren't supposed to go without a passbook. Right. It was
initially started as a work thing though in the in
the minds of South Africa, that's where apartheid was born.
And a lot of the apartheid techniques like like you say,
pass books, um, and just the general degradation of blacks
(09:36):
in South Africa area. Um, it all began. I mean
it was already in place, but just the brutality of it,
I take it really picked up in the minds. Um.
So that was what the eighteen sixties and that was
pretty much the way it was. Um. It was a
British colony in South Africa. It was. It wasn't South
(09:58):
Africa yet, but it was a British colony, Dutch re
ruling it. The blacks, Um, they're the African the indigenous
indigenous natives, um were on the losing end. Of all
of this in a very brutal fashion. And then in
the early nine hundreds and I think nineteen o eight, um,
the people who were running this British colony, the Dutch,
said hey man, we want a little more authority here. Yeah,
(10:22):
And they were at this point they were Afrikaaner. Like
in the past century, they had changed a lot. They
had this weird hybrid language that developed, and they were
not they were Dutch in heritage, but they were starting
to become a new people in southern Africa, which is
African or they probably felt about as Dutch as like
you and I feel British, right, you know, yeah, that's
(10:44):
a good point. But yeah, so yeah, they were like
a whole new, whole new group. But the basis of
this was that they were a whole new group who
had grown up in charge of another group and they
wanted to make sure that they had a free hand
in dealing with these other sub classes. Um. And also
I want to say, like, any time you hear me
say subclasses, I'm making air quotes, everybody. Yeah, and when
(11:06):
I say big difference between master slave and master servant,
I was being sarcastic. We're anti apartheid, yeah, okay. Um,
so the the these Afrikaners running the show sent a
new constitution to Britain, and Britain said, okay, go ahead, Um,
we're gonna go ahead and grant this. It's going to
be called the South Africa Act of nineteen ten. And
(11:28):
with that, British decreed that the state of South Africa
was born phil British colony, but it was officially under
African or control. That's right. And uh, oh yeah, one
other thing black people can't hold off as ever. Yeah,
that's like the first of what would be many, many,
many restrictions. And that's a huge one, because all of
(11:49):
a sudden, you have an all white boye made up
of white people who feel that this is their white
man's burden to keep you from being shiftless and lazy
and thieving and just killing yourselves and cutting off your
own hands and killing one another. It's up to the
white man to make sure you don't do that. And
(12:09):
we're going to keep you, keep you safe by subjugating you.
And the first way we're gonna do that is to
just have an all white government. That's right. And uh
and the second thing we're gonna do is we're gonna
take your land because even though we only make up
of the population as white people, we need the land.
So we're gonna shuffle seven I'm sorry of the people
(12:32):
on to seven percent of the land, really crappy land,
really bad land. And UM. That was under the leadership
of General Louis or Louis or Louis both a first
Prime Minister of South Africa, and the Native Lands Act
of nine basically was when they said, you know what,
(12:53):
We're gonna move all these communities. If we kill you
along the way or you die, no big deal, if
your whole life is just didn't no big deal. And
we're essentially going to shove you onto these tiny parcels
of crappy land. So that began what's called the segregation period.
But you can't go here, this is white land. UM.
(13:13):
And after during the segregation period between the Nine Lands
Act in the fifties or UM, a bunch of other
things happened for the UM the blacks who are who
came to be called Bantus Indigenous Africans UM. They lost
(13:33):
the right to vote in the thirties. In the twenties,
they had lost the right to unionize and basically they're
just being pushed further and further out of a meaningful
participation in society. Yeah. They they they tried to hamper
their access to education even early on, and fired them
from jobs even if they were totally more skilled than
(13:54):
a white worker. Yeah, if you were a skilled craftsman
and you had apprenticed, you couldn't you couldn't carry out
your craft any longer. But legally they could go in
and be like, you know what, there's a white guy
who we think is better for this job, so you're fired. Yeah,
because that was the government, right. Um, and this was
even before the African or Nationalist Party. This is before
(14:15):
apartheid officially. That didn't come around until Wayne Again, with
an all white government that had been in power for
thirty five years. This extreme right wing, basically a fringe movement,
the Afrikaan or Nationalist Movement, came to power and they
officially instituted what we call apartheid. There are apartheid policy
(14:37):
starting in ninety eight, but really kicking off in nineteen
fifty with the what the Population Registration Act, right, Yeah,
and this was under Prime Minister DF Malin at the time,
and with the Population and Registration Act is when they
created officially the Bantu like you said, and named the
indigenous black population. Uh. There. So there's Bantou, there's white,
(14:59):
and and there's colored, which is mixed race, and you
have to register yourself and be legally classified as one
of these three races. Everyone was everybody. If you're white,
goodness for you, Yeah, because you've got of the land. Yeah.
If you're Bontu or uh, mixed race, then bad luck
for you. Right and then um at first Indians were
(15:21):
left out and Indians, I guess because it was a
British colony, uh, since India was also a British colony.
South Africa was kind of a place to be force
for Indians, including Gandhi, who was one of the early
protesters of the segregationist idea um and was imprisoned for
I think twenty years in South Africa. Yeah, he was,
(15:41):
or he was imprisoned while he was there for twenty years.
He spent part of it in prison for protesting segregation
of course. But then so ultimately Indians were excluded as foreigners.
But then just to keep problems from happenings, to keep
the bureaucracy going, they were added as a fourth race. Um,
(16:02):
you could not get married between races. If you were
Bantu and loved with someone of mixed race, you couldn't
even marry them. Very restrictive. And then next came another
act called the Group Areas Act, and this really escalated
the segregation um because now you needed past books essentially
passports to go from one area to another. Some you
(16:25):
weren't even allowed in. And um that even went further
in the Bantu Homelands Homelands Act of ninety one, which
basically said, you know what, wherever your your area is
in South Africa, that is now your homeland. And you're
not even South African anymore. Yeah, if you're if you're
bannt to you live in this area. If you're a
(16:46):
banned too married to a colored person, the your colored
spouse lives in a different area. Yeah, your family's just
ripped apart. Now, well they took away. Basically they said,
you're not in South Africa. You're and we're allowing you
to stay here. Basically if you stay in this one
area that your past book says that you can stay in, right,
because you can't stay here because you're not alone, you're
no longer a member of this country. Believable, Like I
(17:09):
drew exclamation points next to that one, just because like
they literally moved in, took over these people and then said,
you're not even a part of this country right that
we have established. So they have they've been pushed out
of participation in society. The um. Anybody who's not white,
Um is now forced onto a reservation essentially. Um. And
(17:33):
then they really kind of started indoctrinating the next generation
with the Ban to Education Act of nineteen fifty three.
And basically if you were banned too, you would be
put into a school where the student teacher ratio was
about fifty six to one on average. You went to
school three hours a day. Um they did in two shifts.
A teacher would see two different classes, Um, three hours
(17:55):
for one and three hours for another, and you would
be taught basically how um they the history of your
people was that you were you were kind of dumb
and meandering, and you hadn't really done anything with the
land before and um, how you were reliant on the
white people who came to rescue you and your people. Um.
You were taught how you could work in a factory.
(18:17):
And that's about as good as it got for you. Um.
And basically they were taught to be servile and better
servants to the the white um afrikanners. Yeah. Well that
was the plan at least, but it backfired because in
the nineteen fifties and sixties, instead of becoming more docile,
(18:37):
they rallied and became uh more upset uh and basically
he raged against the machine. In the nineteen fifties and sixties,
at the same time that the U s Civil rights
movement was going on, the same thing was kind of
starting to happen in South Africa, and it was the
beginning of what would be you know, thirty years end
(19:00):
of apartheid. Yeah, I guess you could say, yeah, um
people got mad, yeah, and rightly so. Yeah. And this
wasn't just uh indigenous people. There were also white liberals
at the time, just like here in the US, that
were very much against apartheid and also you know suppressed
when they tried to like you know, raise awareness or
(19:23):
fight back. Right because one of the things about um,
the apartheid government, it wasn't just racial segregation. Um. They were,
like I said, extremely right wing and they were very
much into isolationism. They kept a very tight control over
what their their population, white or non white, UM had
(19:45):
access to as far as the news went music music.
Have you seen searching for sugar Man. It's a good one, UM,
and it was you saw what they did with like
there was a record on there was a song on
his record Rodriguez yea and m. He scratched the song
the vinyl so they couldn't be played. They did stuff
like that. UM just won the Academy Award. And we
(20:09):
don't want to spoil anything though, because it unfolds in
a really great, mysterious way. It's good. It's a good documents,
great documentary, and that's what inspired this decision to do this. Actually, right, UM,
So the government was fairly close to total terrian, Like
if you descended against the government, white, black, otherwise you
would go to jail. UM. But despite this, and despite
(20:31):
the brutality that the police were engaged in, like UM
there was a for example, there was a strike in
v Unarmed black miners went on strike, peaceful protest. A
thousand people were killed by the police. Yeah, they would
just open fire on crowds. Yeah. So this is right,
(20:52):
and this is one of the reasons why UM, I
think people were so so resistant to being indoctrinated into
apartheid mentality. Um because of the in part because of
the brutality of the police tactics. But so let's talk
about this UM. In the sixties, Uh, like you were saying,
when the U s Civil rights movement was was really
(21:13):
starting to brew and and take shape, UM, Nelson Mandela
emerged as a member of the African National Congress, huge organization,
and then there was also the Pan African Pan Africanist Congress,
and they were basically peaceful protest groups that were set
up to counter the apartheid philosophy. Yeah, and like we said,
(21:36):
even though it was peaceful, it didn't matter. The Sharps
Sharpville massacre in nineteen sixty thousand black Africans left their
pass books at home and said, you know what, We're
just gonna go to the police station and turn ourselves
in because we don't have our pass books. What are
you gonna do processes all. No, they're gonna open fire
on the crowd, killed sixty nine people, uh, wounded hundreds apparently.
(22:00):
And then they said, you know what, We're going to
ban public gatherings then, and they also banned the African
National Congress in the Pan Africans like, you're all illegitimate
now and Nelson Mandela, you're going to jail, not yet
now yet they drove the Pan Africanist Congress in the
African he went to jail, right, but in nineteen sixty
they drove him underground. And as a result, these groups
(22:23):
went from being peaceful to becoming actually they formed paramilitary
wings and Mandela um led the African National Congresses guerilla wing.
And he actually later on said, yeah, we were we
were guerillas and possibly terrorists, and like there were human
rights violations by my group and I regret that. Yeah,
(22:44):
but they were good theroists right. Um, but he was
jailed for for uh, we'll send it to a life
in prison and remain in prison for thirty years. And
most people, unless you're super young, remember Nelson Mandela for
Nelson Mandela being a rallying cry up until like freaking eighties,
which is ridiculous that this is still going on then,
but um, that's the way it went. There. Um another protest,
(23:09):
peaceful Soweto. Um. This time it was students and it
was because they were trying to make Afrikaans the primary
language in Black upper schools, even though not many of
them even spoke it. So what good is that? So
they went to protest this and against open fire. Two
children were killed this time and it started a bunch
(23:30):
of riots and in the end three thousand people up
to three thousand says between five seventy five and three thousand,
probably depends on who you're asking. Uh, we're killed by
the police. Um. And again just following the same script
that they did with sharp Ville in nineteen sixty, the
government said all right, all any distent groups are completely banned,
(23:52):
you know, outright um, and then included the South African
Students Organization led by a guy named Steve Ico. And
Steve Ico had he was medical student. He was like thirty,
I think when he died. UM. He had found what
was called the Black Consciousness movement and it was basically like, uh,
it was teaching African self worth, countering everything that was
(24:12):
taught through the Bantu Education Act and everything you learned
in school, UM, African self reliance, economic self reliance, UM.
And it had spread outside of Africa. He was a
pretty big figure and he was pulled over with the
Buddy and a bunch of um Anti apartheid UH pamphlets,
and the police arrested him. They beat him, they left
(24:33):
him with the head wound, and he died of his injuries.
Um and when Steve Ico died that was that changed everything. Yeah,
he was detained under the Terrorism Act nineteen sixty seven,
which basically said, if we suspect you being a terrorist,
we can detain you for up to sixty days, and
then we can renew that sixty days, by the way,
(24:55):
indefinitely without telling anyone, without releasing who's there. And it
was basically a way to make the people disappear. Usually
if you were detained under this act, you were never
heard from again. And Ico eventually found himself in a
coma and UH because of torture. And then eventually they said,
after about three weeks, you know, we should probably take
the guy to a prison with a hospital at least.
(25:19):
So they threw his naked body in the back of
a truck to take him to a hospital and he died.
They said it was a hunger strike. It was actually
brain hemorrhage from being beaten upside the head. And years
later Denzel Washington would play him and cry freedom, and
Peter Gabriel wrote the awesome song Ko and Um Tribe
(25:39):
called quest has Um Steve Beco song. Yeah, stir it up. Yeah. Um,
so the Souto uprising, the and the police killings of
those two children, UH was followed right on the heels
by Steve Beco's death, which was a big deal, like
around the world. Yeah, it was the UM the US
(26:00):
ambassadors South Africa, I think and probably was a huge
protest move went to Steve Beco's funeral. Um there was Yeah,
Steve Beco dying was that was a big deal. Yeah,
and we should shout out to Helen Susman, shout out.
She was the one voice of reason uh in South
Africa's all white parliament. She was the one voice anti
(26:22):
apartheid voice. And she was like if you look her
up today, mean, she's an amazing, amazing woman. She just
died a few years ago, but she was at the
funeral and um, yeah, this is when it became like
a thing around the world like hate. You know what,
We're gonna start pulling our embassies out of South Africa,
We're gonna start boycotting UH sanctions against South Africa economic sanctions.
(26:47):
And this was happening with the United States Great Britain,
other Western nations, and basically South Africa became you know,
the evil Empire, like exposed. It was pretty cool by
the by. Finally, in nine six the US Congress got
its act together enough to pass the Comprehensive Anti Apartheid Act,
(27:07):
and it banned any new investment, UM, any new business
setting up and dealing in trade with South Africa. Um.
South Africa was banned from doing business here in the
U S. So South African airlines couldn't land at any
US airport. Um. Yeah, big time. The rand fell in
value is a big deal. Um. And Reagan vetoed it actually,
(27:28):
and his veto was overridden by Congress. That's how that's
how much, that's how badly they wanted to do it. Um.
And it was a very important thing. This was right
in the middle of Um. This is like when we
were kids. You remember that, like that that Keith Hearing
um poster from South Africa. Um. There was like the
income place, Sun City, remember that one. Yeah, it was
(27:50):
a there was a it was a big deal. The
whole world was opposed to South Africa. UM. There was
this great thing called divestment that actually may have really
been a thing that killed apartheid in South Africa was
the deal. So divestment is and it's going on now.
But um, with apartheid, it was basically where people like
(28:11):
it started with colleges. Colleges have huge endowments that are
heavily invested in all sorts of stuff. And they said,
you know what, we're not going to invest in anything
that has anything to do with South Africa anymore. Coca Cola,
if you're doing business in South Africa, we're not gonna
invest in any whoever. Um. And so they divested rather
than invested. They got all their money out and a
(28:32):
lot of university a lot of universities did this, and
they did it at the prompting and some of their students,
like in Harvard, they the students erected a shaneytown to
show what the people who lived in the towns in
South Africa were living like. And and got all these
endowments to to start divesting. And I think uh CAL
(28:52):
had the biggest one. They divested three billion dollars from
the South African economy. And um, they think that that
was the thing that really like like open the bleeding
go bears. Yeah, So, um, this divestment combined with this
international political pressure all over the world, and South Africa
still says, go to hell, we're not getting rid of
(29:14):
apartheime for years still and yeah, and then finally it
was what, uh, well, nineteen eighty nine is when the
big turning point came. That's when F. W. De Clerk
became president of apartheid South Africa. And between eighty nine
and ninety three is when he basically repealed everything on
the books and said this is going in a different direction.
(29:36):
Now let's release Nelson Mandela. And in fact, when we
have our first democratic election in nineteen Nelson Mandela wins.
So what a great ending to that story. And uh,
despite being in prison for thirty years. Uh. On May tenth,
(29:57):
when Mandela was giving his his speech, he's closed by
speaking in Afrikaans. This isn't his inaugurations. Yeah, which is
like the fact that even spoken that tongue. To me,
it says a lot about the man. And he said,
what what has past has past? And here's a Nobel
Peace prize. Mr Mandela and Mr di Clerk, like you
(30:18):
both get it in and I like the article pointed
out it was a shockingly peaceful transition. Uh. And I'm
sure there are still many many more years that are
needed for the healing. Uh. You don't get over or
something like that overnight if it's been hundreds of years.
But um, I think things are definitely headed in the
right direction now. Yeah. Well, one of the things that
(30:40):
they did was they set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
which is like basically a tribunal that heard um stories
of human rights violations that gave victims a voice to
say it in public, like this happened to me. Um.
In some instances, people who perpetrated these could be prosecuted.
They could also be forgiven publicly by this court, this tribunal. Um.
(31:00):
It was a really good move to like kind of
help this national healing because yeah, all of a sudden,
Apartheid's gone over a four year period. But I mean
there was a lot of people who were kind of
into that and they did a lot of stuff and
they're not protected by the government anymore, and like a
lot of bad things happened to a lot of people
are still alive, Like what do you do? Uh? And
I think that was a really good move to to
(31:23):
move not just the government but also the society to
post apartheid um life. Yeah, I'd like to hear from
people in South Africa about the state of things today.
And watch Searching for Sugar Man. People. It's really like,
through this great story of music encapsulates this whole time
period really really well. Right and then, uh, I guess
(31:44):
ever since the Aliens landed over Johannesburg, that's kind of
taken up a lot of their a lot of their attention.
District nine, Yeah, which was really based on apartheid pretty
much wasn't What was that the inspiration for them? That
was a good movie. Yeah, so watch that, watch District nine,
Searching for Sugarman, and watch Cry Freedom and go listen
(32:07):
to Tribe called Quest. Peter Gabriel, I haven't even I
have not listened or seen the Rugby movie yet. Morgan
Freeman place Mandela with Damon. Yeah, what is it? Invictus? Yeah? Yeah,
I need I need to see now. Uh, okay, let's
sit for apartheid hunt goodness? Uh do you want to do?
(32:29):
H A word from our sponsor? Yeah, we got listener
mail coming up, but work from our sponsor first. So
now it's time for listener mail, right, that's right, Josh,
I'm gonna call this surfs up. I just listened to
how surfing works as someone who serves three hundred days
a year all over the world and teaches surfing for
(32:50):
a living. I just wanted to say that you guys
did an excellent job for two guys who don't surf
in a very limited experience with it. Your definitions and
descriptions were pretty much spot on, and I would have
to agree with you Chuck that it is very difficult
to learn. It has one of the slowest, most miserable
learning curves of any sport. I always tell people that
if you don't enjoy sucking at it, then you won't
(33:10):
enjoy surfing. So quickly. Did you surf on your vacation? Yeah?
I did? Then how did you Dot waiting to ask
I got up? You me was watching from the shore
and she agrees, um that I did get up at
least once possible. She says, possibly twice, But I, um,
I only stand by one, and by by get up,
(33:32):
I mean I was virtually crouching and then fell off
after like five seconds. And how many days did you
try it? I just one and I didn't even I
didn't even take a lesson. Okay, you just went out there,
do you know how well? Our podcast exactly. Yeah, that's
how I figured out how to do it. I did
kind of, but um, I remember we were talking about
how it's very easy to like get on your hands
(33:53):
and knees and then get up, but you don't want
to learn that technique. That's that's what I learned. Yeah,
you gotta call before you can walk exactly. Also I
should clear up that in general, learning to surf on
a longboard is usually preferred, as he catch waves easier
and you're easier to stand up on them a short board.
But being that catching a wave is the hardest part
for beginners, you're usually better off learning that way. Did
(34:15):
you have a short board? Uh? Yeah, it was shortish shortage. Yeah,
it definitely wasn't a long board. They turn easier, but
turning his pointless if you can't catch the wave in
the first first place. So yeah, there was no turning
going on. Yeah, it was surf riding. Surf riding anyway.
I just want to say, good job guys. I'll be
teaching surfing all summer in Southampton, New York. If you're
(34:35):
up in New York this summer, hit me up. I'll
take you out for surf and that is Miles from
Santa Cruz. PS. Big Wednesday is the best movie ever.
Of course you think that because that's what surf first did. Um,
that's nice, Miles three days a year. Can you believe
that he's sounds like Miles has got a pretty decent
life if he's living in Santa Cruz and then teaching
(34:57):
in New York in the summers. Yeah. Um, thank for
running in, Miles. If you are an expert or you
do something that we've talked about three d days a year,
we want to hear from you because that pretty much
makes you an expert. Um. You can tweet to us
at s y s K podcast. You can join us
at Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You
can send us a an email right in to Stuff
(35:22):
Podcasts at Discovery dot com and check out our website
Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Does It how stuff Works
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