I remember getting this book while I was still a high school student. If memory serves me correctly, I got a copy after stumbling upon the exposition of it that was in the United Nations at the time. It perhaps serves as a historical documentation of an era (the struggle for the anti-apartheid movement during the late 80's/early 90's), but at the time, it was still a much more active book for the situation that was then prevalent in South Africa. It was a strong statement on what was then current, and revealed a side of South Africa that was more than a little revealing. Most people maybe had gotten used to images of violence in South Africa at the time. Yet, these photographs capture a moment in time, and within them, you can see the facial expressions, the body language, the full out living color within which these portraits of reality existed in a nation very divided at the time.
Now, we can mostly view it, and read it, as history. But even then, it is more revealing than a book that would be relegated to black and white print, however vivid or effective the descriptions. Unlike television, these pictures reveal something, but do not limit the imagination, like a five second news clip of some violent occurrence tends to do, either back then in South Africa, or presently, in, say, Syria. When you see some image frozen in time, it humanizes things more effectively than anything else, and so this is a tribute to the effectiveness of great photography.
This book does have some printed words (and very good and definitive words, at that), but while having some wonderful and provocative words, is nonetheless more of a book of photography than anything else. The illustrations in here, by prize winning photographer David C. Turnley, were taken during his time in South Africa, those epic days of rising revolt during the mid-1980's. Turnley was in South Africa from 1985 until 1987, during which time there were numerous protests and confrontations that Turnley was witness to.
Those were days when South Africa was very often in the news headlines for all the wrong reasons. It was the last gasp for those who believed in apartheid (and there were quite a few still remaining). The National Party, traditionally the political expression and force of the Afrikaner people, was beginning to lose it's grip on the nation, and the people it purportedly represented. There was such a divide because many in the National Party felt the time for reform was at hand, while others resisted. The official resistance was a more tolerant English-speaking South African party up until the mid-eighties, but it was replaced at this time by the Conservative Party, led by Afrikaner Dr. Andries Treurnicht. This was representative of a break amongst the formerly always united Afrikaner "nation", if you will.
The sitting President of South Africa at that time was PW Botha, and his unwillingness to fully commit to one side or the other ended up displeasing everybody. When he took power, he told his fellow whites (and particularly Afrikaners), that they must "adapt or die". He seemed intent on ushering in reforms. Yet, his reforms were half-hearted and insincere. He came up with a limited role in government for the Indians and so-called Coloureds, but they held no real power. It was more symbolic than anything. Plus, the black majority was shut out of the process entirely.
Still, Botha seemed to hint that this was just the beginning, that maybe more reforms were coming. At the height of the chaos in South Africa, in 1985, Botha infamously called the press for what was supposed to be a huge speech. Much of the world seemed to wait on the edge of their seat, expecting a major announcement . It was assumed - wrongly, as it turned out - that Botha was about to initiate the beginning of a process of reform in South Africa that would bring real democracy and end racial domination of the white minority. Instead, he gave his infamous "Crossing the Rubicon" speech, in which he wagged his finger before the world, and warned them not to push South Africa too far, that the nation would change, in essence, in it's own time, on it's own terms.
The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, it seemed.
Yet, the black majority was, by now, tired of waiting, and demanded change. Protests and violent clashes with the police and soldiers ensued. The entire world watched, wondering what would happen in the tinderbox that South Africa had become. The government responded with a State of Emergency - actually, a series of them. These were allegedly to help quell the growing violence across the country, but the government also used this opportunity to throw journalists and photographers that they deemed hostile to them out of the country - and that ultimately included David Turnley, in 1987. There was a dramatic increase in censorship, and the opportunity to get real, meaningful and truthful news out of South Africa were becoming few and far between.
The photographs by David Turnley were among the real prizes to have come out of the country during that critical era, and there are one hundred of them on display in this book. They are of incredible quality, and usually, reveal a stark side that perhaps portrays apartheid in living color. There is a theme to the portrayal of the pictures. At first, we see whites seemingly self-absorbed in the beginning, enjoying the finer things in life, such as beauty pageants and public gatherings, before showing blacks in subservient roles. Then we glimpse black life separate from the whites, before eventually, whites once again show themselves - although these pictures show less happy and dreamy circumstances than before.
It ends with the funerals, which were the signature events that brought blacks together at that time (due to the State of Emergencies, these funerals offered some of the only real opportunities for blacks to gather, and they became de facto political resistance rallies and demonstrations.
The photographs are the focal point of the book, yet there is a wonderful and comprehensive essay in the beginning by Alan Cowell that really describes those times of peak violence during the 1980's, and reveals many of the paradoxes of living under an apartheid system that everyone really knew, deep down, simply was not working. These were the years just before FW DeKlerk came into power, and within months of ascending to the highest office in the land, he would famously and very publicly announce that the apartheid experiment had been a failure, and decriminalized many of the organizations of political opposition, as well as finally setting a solid date to free Nelson Mandela. It would be a painful struggle still out of apartheid and into a newer, multiracial democracy, but this book focuses on the years just before that, when PW Botha was still President, and strongly hesitating to allow too many reforms (thus, standing in the way of real reforms, yet guarding his power jealously).
With the incredible essay by Cowell, and some truly unbelievable photographs to bring the struggle and the pain of the nation to life, this is a wonderful book that documents very vividly some of the key years of the anti-apartheid struggle that would lead, eventually, to it's dismantling.
I highly recommend this book, especially for anyone studying this subject, and trying to understand the paradoxes of apartheid in theory and in practice, as well as the seeming successes on the inside (how it managed to effectively divide the races and linguistic groups) as well as it's failures! Truly an incredible book.
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