~E EPISCOPAL CHURCHPEOPLE for a FREE SOUTHERN AFRICA c 339 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y. 10012-2725 s (212) 477-0066 A 2·3 April 19 86 .. BUILDING THE FUTURE ' ••. the power is in our handS- we have peopZes' power ••..• you'ZZ get it aZZ baak 3 everything you Zost sinae Z652. ' - Winnie MandeZa 3 Z5 ApriZ Z986 The realization .:i:s general that the current regime in Pretoria is fast losing its grip and will disintegrate beyond repair in the near future. Progressive South _ Africans more and more voice the certitude of success m their struggle. Ms Mandela prophesies the change this year. The .scent of victory is in the air. Others have been shocked into this realization - bank­ ers' mternational businessmen' educational rroguls 'we~t- -­ ern governments. They have launched eno:rnous programs to prepare for South Africa beyond apartheid (the actual name of one think tank effort) to channel the future their way. 'Ihe fear, of both government and free enterprise, is ~NEWS FOCUS ' ausiNus DAY, w~. AprR 2 ,:.- - rl! what a recent NEW YORK TIMES report describes as ! ap­ prehension that change could produce a radical black­ led Gover.rment hostile to the United States ' . These Mandela_~-~ M-plan programs are focused chiefly on the minds of young black South Africa. alive in. townships 'Ihe US government has a purported $45 million educa­ BLACK activists, reviving a plan Secretaries from each street com­ proposed in 1953 by black leader mittee report to area committees tional scheme. Mobil has set up two programs of $10 Nelson Mandela before he was comprlsillg perhaps. 10 streets. The jailed, are beginnin~ to set up a sys-: area. committees report to the UIOCi· : million each, one for black education, the other for tem of township 'street commit· ati.;e are workiDg very lwU to inake rural development and small black businesses • Coca tees" to oppose govermneut. people ,.,.,... this _ _.,...,. " sa-Ng""'· Tbe grassroots committees, which b d"""""'"tlia" ~- ,_ v;p, Cola has a $10' million entry. Universities and col­ are ·most developed In . townships w o a ds t the idea is belDg spread around Port Elizabeth, are being to otherfromareas. "We can import the leges countrywide USA have created or drastically in­ formed amid growing black support r:::-; other places to teach creased scholarship grants. Foundations expand­ for radical oppoaitioa to govemment. Govermnent a to be coo- are . "Tbisisa~lmportantlltructure," ;.Cerned by the gr~ the commit­ mg or instituting South Africa and Namibia centered ~der~UDif:t'~cF;~~!_ ·tees, which were set 1IJ1 oaly In a· few funds • To a certain extent these crash programs are (UDF). "Wemustreacb tbedown-tnKI- ~t:i'~~ ~ c:a aimed at countering the pressure of the divestment den ~1~ ... We must 1111deJ.:stand the now-outlawed African Natioaal what~ taking place ill each particular Ccmgrea in the 1950s. ~d sanctions movement - the former are hailed as &tre!!t. Jobalmesburg trade UDiODist Moees Based oa the "M-plan" proposed Mayekiso wbo was recently detained 'positive', the latter petulantly termed 'negative'. ~ tban 30 yean ago by Mazld~ (M ancf lntempted ~ violeace.erapt­ But the .deeper mtent is to mold the future South JB.fC?r Mandela), the street COIDJDlttee ed ill Aleuildra township, said,be was cellS are desiped to be a two-way repeatedly questioaed about street Africa and Namibia in the North American-West Europ­ system to teacli residents and to learn committees; .of their problems and ideas. "I was . interrogated for five days ean rnarmer. · In a situation wbere mast outdoor and they beat me with their fists and meetings are illegal, the small eom- thrust me oa the floor repeatedly until mittees are less vulnerable to State my DeCk got stiff," be said. Police· de- South Africans deep into the struggle have their own repression, UDF officials say. cllned to comment on the aliegatiOIIS. They also present an alteraative to Ngoyi said be hoped the street com- commitment - an ab~ding, hard won determination to black local authorities, many of wbich mittees would. make black residents ~been rejected by black~ understaod the policies of the UDF, create the new South .Africa. Long years, particu­ ties and destroyed. · . wbicb pursues tlie same ideals as the In the TransVaal, black youths have ANC; larly the decade since the Soweto uprising,have been already started clearing rubbisb and "Even in future, when we achieve spent m organizmg, knitting together what South building their 0\lrD' miDiature parks, freedom, we doubt whether we can setting up lDODUJIIellts to black lieroai throw away the structure of area com­ Africa is to become. No hasty manipulations from on IUCb as Steve Biko, wbo died In police mittees and street committees," ·he Cllltody In 1977' and MaDdela. said. high or from abroad can prevail in the face of a ' Members11f the Eastern Cape street Support for the ANC and for com- well-rooted popu:J_ar movement. committees, wbich are set !lflJ:der IIIIUiism , bas bemme .Increasingly the auspices of the UDF · ted overt In the townships In recent years. Port Elizabeth Black Civic Associ· Speakers at mass funerals of riot ation In townsbi.ps IUCb as New Brigb- victims freQuently sing and sbont the ton, Include residents representing praises of ibe Soviet UDion, as red youth, wo~ and other Interest flags and ANC banners are waved by gro~ NgO}'l says. supporters. - Sapa-Renter. A TOWNSHIP PRAYER Sharon Sopher, a seasoned t.v. journalist who has won an Enmy and other awards, shot this filrr} last aut'l.llm Our father who art in heaven~ in South Africa's townships during the State of Emer­ haZZowed be thy name. gency - a feat requiring eluding Pretoria's security Thy freedom come~ forces. WITNESS TO APARTHEID was done at the persua­ Thy wiZZ be done in South Africa sion of Archbishop-elect Desmond Tutu and the Rev Dr as it is in Lusaka. Beyers Naude, general-secretary of the South African Give us those weapons~ Council of Churches. It is by far the most up-to­ Our daiZy miZitary training~ date and compelling look into South Africa's revo­ and forgive the South Africans lutionary present. our Zeackrs. And Zead us not to apartheid. Central to the documentary are young people, many of For thine is the kingdom~ them children, who act with determination and defiance the power and the victory. against the repressive regime - and suffer for their Amen. courage. The prayer at the left is but one example of their faith and strength. WITNESS TO APARTHEID shows the sweep of township youth-police conflict ; the anguish of par­ ents; the chock-full courts judging 'criminals' as young as 8; streetside interviews with whites in Joharmesburg - the uncaring, the ferocious (one woman predicts a 'wipeout' in the townships), the conscience-stricken. Witnesses to torture - young and old - tell us what it is like and show their scars. I:octors elucidate forensic medecine - marks of flaying, the delta-shaped gouges of metal-tipped sjarnboks, entries of birdshot, buckshot, bullets, the imprints of rubber bullets , spongy half-healings of head wounds from rifle butts. Viewers are given detailed lessons on what apartheid is really like. This one-hour documentary de- _ serves to be on every network, in every corrmunity, at every school where American young peo­ ple can see and hear and feel what their peers in South Africa endure. INGUIRIES: Ms Sharon I. Sopher 315 West 57th Street suite 7D New York, N.Y. 10019 14- THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR WEDNESDAY, APRIL9, ·1986 Protecting South Africa's fledgling ·grass-roots democracy structure of post-apartheid South Mrica and the degree cently when they attacked an educational conference of . By Dan ConneD to which violence will define the outcome. UDF groups in Durban. Such incidents are an· almost Apartheid is a means to control the ftow and use of daily occurrence throughout the state of Natal, where HE images we have of SOuth Mrica-of militant, cheap labor that sustains for whites one of the highest Buthelezl maintains his power base by parceling out I"Uelk-throwing teen-agers battling heavily armed standards of. living in the-world. It dismembers families, jobs, services, and other favors in the poverty-stricken T police - provide only a small part of the picture breaks up whole communities, and reduces 75 percent of KwaZulu homeland, according to UDF leaders there. of the power struggle now in full swing there. the. population to chattel, whose every movement .is Yet neither these attacks nor the routine arrest and Certainly there is violence - enough to characterize manipulated by draconiaillaws and sheer pollee power. detention of UDF leaders is slowiitg down the momen­ the crisis as a Iow-level'civil war. But there is also a This is why anti-apartheid activists Insist that the tum of protest activity. This is in large part because of welter of less visible organizing an~ alternative In- system cannot be reformed: It muh be ~ped. They the participatory nature of the growing anti-apartheid stitution-buUding that promises to have a profound · ar,e demanding not only the Integration of buses and movement, which is based upon decentralized, block-by- · . effect on the future of South Africa. beaches,.!~ut also a restru~. of the i!conomy and a block organizing in the black townships, shop-fioor In fact, it is the explosion_,of gra.sHoots democi-acy organizing in the trade unions, and collective leadership within the black "townships," the independent trade in student groups, women's associations, and other unions, and a host of multiracial groups opposed to the .