Things Fall Apartheid

by henk lustig

photos by greg marinovich

At last month’s Shell House rally in Johannesburg, an IFP supporter lies dead beside ANC headquarters. The victim’s shoes have been customarily removed to help him along his way to the afterlife.

South Africa’s first apartheid-free presidential election is finally here, and to punctuate just how important this shit is, citizens have started a civil war so they can kill one another in its honor. Political analysts say Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC) will take 70 percent of the 1994 vote, leaving 20 or so other parties to grapple over the remaining 30: For violent whites there is the Afrikaner Resistance Movement; for frustrated Zulu nationalists there is the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP); for the simply hopeless there is the outgoing National Party. But enough of that facts-and-figures crap. Let’s get to the murdering!

Recently, on March 28, 1994, shots were fired by members of the ANC into a rally of IFP supporters in central Johannesburg. The so-called Shell House massacre left eight people dead and 20 more bleeding all over the place. The army declared a state of emergency in the IFP-heavy region of Natal and has shuffled soldiers to put down the Zulu loyalists. Zulus are not really ones to hand over weapons to their enemies, so they’re fighting back like their ancestral garb depends on it. Groups continue to protest, and the entire area is ankle-deep in just about everyone’s blood.

In the townships, Self-Defense Units formed by black communities in the apartheid era to patrol places the police refused to go have become ragtag vigilante death squads. They commit arson, rob, loot, and on occasion mete out the ultimate punishment for supporting the wrong team (anyone not them): the “necklace.” When they catch up with a victim, they plaster him with stones and pound the conviction out of him. Tires are then forced over his head and around his arms to hold him steady, gasoline is splashed sparingly over the whole shebang, and he is torched like a burst

boerewors

on a

veld

fire.

And then there is last year’s Nobel Peace laureate Nelson Mandela, who is working with current president and co-laureate F. W. de Klerk to pretend that South Africa’s move to democracy is fun and easy. Since the early 60s, when he dropped his Ghandi-like peace pose, Mandela has led the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, or “Spear of the Nation.” It’s clear that the white men and women of Africa’s ruling class don’t care for spears, especially since the word

spear

became a euphemism for an AK-47 or grenade in the 80s. Not helping matters is that today the only time South Africans aren’t being hit by AK-47 or grenade fire is when they’re being dosed with tear gas.

Understandably, much of the white population is choosing to exile itself to the former British colony of Zimbabwe, which has seemed pretty rosy since new president Robert Mugabe took over. That country has weathered the transition from white to black rule with hardly any problems, but there are few signs that even the mighty Mandela can fix the complete fucking disaster that the move to democracy has let loose on South Africa. At this point, with the presidential polls opening in less than a month, it’s more likely that Mandela will be tossed into the massive grave they’ll be digging to stash the rest of the bodies.

The ANC has had consistent firefights with Zulu loyalists, who hope to abolish the current constitution in its entirety. Here a Zulu chief fires a handgun at ANC supporters during a march outside Durban.

ANC and Communist Party supporters flee as police launch tear gas and shoot at mourners in Soweto. Government soldiers are increasingly outnumbered in the numerous violent outbreaks, and with the election coming up in the next month, there are few signs that whatever party takes the presidency will be prepared to handle what follows.