MAKING THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA

Race against time
The real battle in South Africa is not between black and white but between rich and poor. Chris Brazier explains.

Classroom warriors
Maud Motanyane reports on hoe school children have found themselves in the forefront of black resistance.
Black South Africa Speaks: On Youth
Black South Africa Speaks: On Revolution

A stake in the system
Aggrey Klaaste tells how he and other middle-class blacks have found themselves under siege.
Black South Africa Speaks: On Women

The nightingale and the dove
Do Keats and Soweto fit together? A short story by Ahmed Essop.
Black South Africa speaks: On Democracy

South Africa - THE FACTS

Murder in our name
A white couple comes to terms with their son's murder by the military. Profile by Stovin Hayter.
Black South Africa speaks: On Politics

No more mourning
Mothobi Mutloatse explains why funerals in the black townships are no longer sad.

No Kidding
An illustrated history of South Africa by Chris van Wyk and Mzwakhe.

Pressure points
How we can take action to support black South Africans.
Black South Africa Speaks: On Sanctions

THE explosion of international interest in South Africa over the last year made it essential that the NI produce a special issue. We're not a news magazine - our long run up to printing on three continents sees to that. And while one of our functions is to feature countries and issues that the rest of the media never bother with, another useful role we can play is in seeing what lies behind the news stories, showing the underlying forces that have produced the flashpoints.

There has been no shortage of foreign journalists breezing into South Africa over the last few months - the trouble-shooting specialists, in particular, who advertise their own intrepidness at least as much as the meaning of what they're presenting. But they never give us black people's views - you'd think Bishop Tutu was the only black person in South Africa capable of stringing a few words together.

So we decided to hand over this issue to black South Africans so that they could communicate directly with an international readership. This was made possible by help from the South African Committee for Higher Education and the Ford Foundation. I flew to Johannesburg early in January to work with the activists and writers who were to contribute to the issue.

It was an exciting experience. There was a real sense that something was happening, that history was being made around me. And I've never felt so privileged to be a journalist, able to jet in and get immediate access to people who'd given their lives to the resistance movement. In some cases they'd been imprisoned for years for holding the same views as I do.

People were amazingly open - whether that was because they respected the NI, or because they'd already had me checked out, I don't know. One local radical ventured that it was because they were used to one in every 25 people they met in the liberation movement being a Government agent: and if you accept that, there's no point in clamming up, since the security forces will know everything they want to know anyway.

My first two weeks in Johannesburg and Cape Town were spent just listening - to activists and poets, journalists and politicians. And the next two I spent bullying people to deliver their articles on time, and seeking out the best black photographers and illustrators. Only one of the articles in this magazine apart from my editorial is written by a white journalist - and that was because we felt it was important to show that there are white people being radicalised by the current crisis as well as black. White photographers and cartoonists are also represented here, but wherever possible we felt we should be offering black people the space which they are usually denied.

As much of the work as possible was done in consultation with two black co-editors, both of whom were invaluable guides through the intricacies of the political scene. Chris van Wyk is a fine poet as well as editor of Staffrider, a magazine that showcases the literature of protest, and Mothobi Mutloatse founded Skotaville, a black publishing house, after years of encouraging the flow of creative writing produced by the Black Consciousness movement. Both of them read and commented on all the articles, including my editorial, as well as contributing writing of their own.

I think it's an issue which provides a radically different perspective on South Africa - my ideas about the place have certainly been changed by the experience. We know all about the distorted picture of the world painted by the South African media, but I never realised before how much the world omits from its picture of South Africa.

Letters
Letter from Murinye
Update
Briefly
Endpiece: by Father John Medcalf
Reviews: including the NI Classic
Country profile: Togo

COVER ILLUSTRATION: Mzwakhe
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER