[Marxism] In My Country

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ordinarily I do not review films that I hate. However, I will make an
exception for "In My Country," a film that deals with the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings in South Africa of the late 1990s
and that achieves an awfulness of biblical proportions. It is of additional
interest that the political and dramatic failings complement each other.
This is not like a John Sayles film putting forward progressive messages
woodenly. Nor is it like a John Ford western with a reactionary message
wrapped in a thrilling story. It is guilty on all counts.

Basically, this is a film that exaggerates the importance of the TRC
hearings. It is understandable that in the celebratory mood that
accompanied the end of apartheid that such a film might be made. But with a
decade of steadily degrading living conditions in South Africa and the rise
of a new ANC bourgeoisie, it is disturbing to watch a film that turns these
hearings into some kind of vindication of "unbuntu," a word that can
roughly translated as the "interconnectedness of all people." In the
context of post-apartheid South Africa, a bit more "disconnectedness" might
be needed, especially on a class basis.

Moreover, the characters are not believable, the dialogue is stilted, the
plotting is mechanical and everything is bathed in a melodramatic schmaltz
that makes one gag for air. At the critic's screening last night, I had to
resist the urge to yell out loud at the screen. I did manage one "bullshit"
under my breath, however.

"In My Country" is based on Antjie Krog's memoir "Country of My Skull."
Krog is a radio reporter and poet of Afrikaner descent. In the film, her
character becomes Anna Malan, played by French actress Juliette Binoche. In
the film and in real life, Krog/Malan is the quintessential liberal who
understands the apartheid era as a function of bad character rather than
political economy. Her father and brother are racists who don't think twice
about shooting black African cattle rustlers on their ranch, as is depicted
in the film's opening scene. She, on the other hand, wants all
Africans--both black and white--just to get along together.

Set against her "Kumbaya" yearnings is Washington Post reporter Langston
Whitehead, a fictional character played by Samuel Jackson, who comes across
as someone to the left of the Black Commentator. When Whitehead and Malan
first meet, the sparks fly as they debate whether the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission hearings will do any good. Let's put it this way.
Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn will not have to worry about being
displaced in film history by this rivalry. Screenwriter Ann Peacock
invented the Whitehead character as a kind of everyman, who would be "the
window through which the outside world experiences the TRC."

Suffice it to say that the Washington Post was a window through which the
State Department could experience South Africa, not some ostensible
"everyman." This newspaper and the N.Y. Times did nothing to resist
apartheid when it was in its ascendancy. At the time that the TRC hearings
were taking place, they were covered by Lynne Duke, an African-American
reporter whose articles can best be described as neutral reportage. Late in
the film, a faxed article describing the apartheid years as genocidal is
depicted with Langston Whitehead's byline and his editor's "great work"
inscribed over it. "Genocidal" is certainly not the sort of word that Lynne
Duke would have used and if she did, her editor would demand a rewrite--or
a resignation letter.

Most of the film consists of testimony at the TRC hearings with Whitehead
and Malan squabbling over their effectiveness in the evenings over beer or
whiskey. Eventually they end up in the sack. Their romance has about as
much persuasiveness as toothpaste commercials. We understand that Malan
will eventually win the argument because everything in the film is
obviously set up to demonstrate that "unbuntu" is the way to go. For
example, at one hearing an African boy in the witness stand sits silently.
He has not spoken since he saw his parents killed by the cops. When one of
the cops approaches the boy on his knees and begs for his forgiveness, the
boy gives him a big hug signaling that all is well. This is when I muttered
"bullshit."

The other major character is Malan's soundman Dumi Mkhalipi, played by
Menzi Ngubane. He is there to offer comic relief with constant boozing and
suggestions to Whitehead to "lighten up." There is not a single black
African character in the film who offers an articulate critique of the TRC
hearings, even though they did exist in large numbers during the period.

It is difficult to look at the TRC hearings without thinking about
Nuremberg or any other War Crimes Tribunal. In South Africa cops and
soldiers received instant amnesty if they fully disclosed their crimes and
declared that they were following orders! That was no excuse for Eichmann
and it should have been no excuse for the five cops who killed Steven Biko.
All went scot-free as did Jeff Benzien in 1999, who was the master of the
"wet bag" torture. Prisoners had a wet bag wrapped ever more tightly around
their neck until they revealed names of their comrades. Many died of
suffocation during interrogation. Benzien received amnesty in 1999 after
expressing remorse.

In Cuba, they put people like Benzien up against the wall in 1959 to
receive justice. This first act of the Cuban revolution was singled out as
"barbarous" by the US government. Of course, what was truly barbarous was
US support for Batista's torturers over the years. Looking back at the TRC
with hindsight, we can understand now that it was exactly the kind of
proceeding that would be acceptable to imperialism and the local ruling
classes. Instead of a clean sweep that rendered justice as part of a total
emancipatory struggle, you had compromise. The ANC would be allowed to take
power while multinational corporations would be allowed to continue to make
super-profits out of the sweat and blood of the black proletariat.

In 1999, the South African government reduced the corporate tax rate from
35% to 30%. People in the highest income brackets also found their taxes
reduced by R1500. These reductions were offset by reductions in social
services, including compensation to the victims of apartheid who testified
before the TRC.

"In My Country" was directed by John Boorman, an English director who is
probably as well-meaning as Antjie Krog. He also directed "Emerald Forest,"
a film about capitalist encroachment on indigenous lands in the Amazon
rainforest that is well worth watching. (See my review at:
<http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/emerald_forest.htm>http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/emerald_forest.htm)
In the production notes, Boorman says that he traveled widely in South
Africa during the apartheid years and grew to respect oppositionists such
as parliamentarian Van Zyl Slabbert, who saw his wife spit upon in the
street by a racist. In many ways, the stance of people such as Boorman,
Krog and Slabbert mirrors that of Northern liberals after the end of Jim
Crow. With the abolition of legal segregation, it is possible for such
people to become assuaged, especially when they see a layer of the black
population rising to their own economic level--thereby vindicating the
superiority of bourgeois democracy.

"In My Country" was produced by the Industrial Development Corporation of
South Africa Ltd, a self-financing, national development finance
institution established in 1940 by an act of Parliament. The chairman of
the board is Wendy Luhabe, who also sits on the board of Vodacom, a
telecommunications company, along with Sizwe Nxasana. A South African
website devoted to high technology reported on Nxasana's keynote address to
a recent telecomm conference. In it he says that South Africa's
telecommunications liberalization offers many new opportunities.

This is the face of the New South Africa. The black bourgeoisie sees
limitless horizons while the poor get the right to sit in the same
restaurant as a white. I'll end this review with the perceptive remarks of
Trevor Ngwane, a leader of the new movement to resist the kind of
liberalization and privatization championed by Luhabe and Nxasana:

"We managed to get rid of apartheid, at least formally, in terms of
removing the racial foundation of legislation. Secondly we won the rights
to freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom to organize collectively
for mass activism organizing unions, meetings and thing like that.

"But what has been bad is that the rich have been getting richer and the
poor poorer in the past ten years. This is according to all social and
economic indicators, both by government and non-governmental organizations.

"The other thing that is more serious for the working class is that the
power of the rich--the capitalists and big business--has been strengthened.
What has happened in South Africa is--instead of the old ruling classes
being replaced by a true people's government, a democracy-- the old ruling
class has been reinforced by elements from the peoples camp. So we find
that the top leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) leadership, the
top leaders of Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the top
leaders of the communist party are all in the government or in the private
sector running some big corporations. Now, some of them for the first time
are owned by black people, but the bottom line is that the ruling class has
not been shaken. Rather, it has been reinforced by elements from our own ranks.

"So this is the problem in South Africa. This makes me pessimistic about
getting rid of this phenomenon where the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer. It looks like this trend will continue."

full: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11501

--

www.marxmail.org


_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism