Terry Conway reviews John Pilger’s film, Apartheid did not die and his latest book Hidden Agendas (Vintage £8.99)
Fighting the 'unpeople'
John Pilger’s documentary on South Africa shown on BBC on April 21, has evoked vicious attacks in the press. I read some of the criticism before I had a chance to see the film, and I found it difficult to believe I was watching the same material. The film I saw was incisive, honest and soul-searching.
John Pilger was himself banned by the apartheid regime – he makes no plea to turn the clock back.
His film does not suggest that the long struggle against apartheid should not have been waged, or make cynical remarks about those who gave their lives literally or figuratively in that battle.
Indeed the central hallmark of his work, whether on film or the written page is the faith he places in the militancy of ordinary people, the ‘unpeople’ as he calls them in his book.
His ‘crime’ is that, like the South African socialists whose pieces we print on p13, he does not believe that enough has changed since the election of President Mandela.
He illustrates the way in which the lives of the black majority remain incarcerated in deep poverty and social deprivation.
For that he is pilloried both by those relieved that class privilege has remained entrenched, and those who mistakenly believe that the ANC is infallible.
If Pilger has a weakness it is that he seems to suggest that the failure of the ANC is confined to their refusal to implement the Freedom Charter.
While it is certainly the case that that programme promised far more in terms of redistribution than the new government has carried through, the problem goes deeper than that.
The Freedom Charter itself, and the strategy of the ANC and the South African Communist Party behind it, was based on the idea that what was needed in South Africa was not a socialist revolution which would destroy the economic basis of apartheid at the same time as changing its legal basis, but first a change to democracy, and after that thinking about other issues.
This – the classic "two stage" notion of revolution beloved of generations of stalinists – is what has led to the impasse of today’s South Africa. These were the sort of events that led Leon Trotsky to write his classic book, Permanent Revolution, which explained that in the epoch of imperialism the only way to win any real gains, even things that might seem very small, was through socialist revolution.
Despite this political weakness, Pilger’s work stands head and shoulders above virtually everyone else in the mainstream press.
His importance is precisely that this gives him an audience which is way beyond what this or other socialist papers can reach. Hidden Agendas, published last month follows in the fine tradition of his previous books.
This collection of essays cover many aspects of world politics in which the expositions of today’s battles are strengthened by telling the tales of what came before.
Whether in East Timor, Vietnam or the Liverpool docks he weaves a graphic picture of the land, of ordinary people’s lives and convictions . The craft of his writing and the ideas of those he lets speak on these pages has power to win new friends to these struggles and to further inspire the already involved.
‘On the Famine Road’ , an essay about the Irish Famine, is probably my favourite, though it is difficult to choose in this book of gems. Read it – and borrow a video of the film if you missed it on TV.