Amandla
[Note: I saw this movie in the theater 2 years ago and did not take notes. Thus, I do not know all the names of the principle people interviewed.]
A few months ago I found an interesting piece of paper while cleaning my apartment. During the mid-1980s I worked in a book acquisitions department in a major university. The correspondence I found came from a bookseller in South Africa informing us of the disposition of our order. "We wish to inform you that the book you ordered, Amandla is not available because it has been BANNED. Please consider your order cancelled." The all caps were in the message. I kept it all these years because of the bizarre combination starkly honest despotism communicated with polite business prose. A despotic regime censors books, tortures prisoners and maintains a brutal police state. But, evidently, there's never an excuse for bad manners.
Strange contradictions and unexpected behaviors fascinate me. And despite South Africa's current troubles, I find some cause for optimism after seeing the movie Amandla, a revolution in four part harmony. First, full disclosure: I am wary of the "folk song army," people who sing trite, earnest "protest songs" and try to convince everyone else at a demonstration to sing along with them. I find most lefty songs about as substantial as slogans, only more boring for the fact that they're longer. If you cringe when you see someone at a rally or other event in ragged clothes, a dopey looking hat and carrying a guitar you know of what I speak. That said the film "Amandla" had a crusty, cynical, folk-song hating curmudgeon like me humming happily as I walked out of the theater. For me to say or type the word "inspirational" without sarcasm rarely ever happens. Well it just did.
A documentary without much chronological structure, the film provides a brief history of music of the black South African people and then relates the integral role of music in their culture with its use in the anti-aparteid struggle. Although I watched the movie two years ago, various scenes still run through my head to this day. In particular I found striking the brief shot of a train full of people heading from their slum to the city to work. Everyone was singing (in harmony). On mass transit in most cities in the U.S. now one sees wires leading from ear-pods, or earphones, disappearing into the jackets and bags of most riders. iPods and other music players accompany people on their way to work (including me). Each of us cut off from each other in our own personally selected individual concert. Throughout Amandla you see how music in black South Africa has a strong participatory character to it. Strangers on a train, when singing together, do not look so much like strangers anymore.
Then I recall the white dissident jailed with blacks describing the executions that took place in a notorious prison. Starting when the condemned man left his cell the other prisoners would sing until they heard the trap door of the gallows. Support, solidarity and defiance. It was the second most moving part of the film for me.
Another interesting passage shows us a group of about 4 or 5 Boer (whites of Dutch descent) former prison guards policemen at a cookout. They talk very candidly about their work. Some appear contrite while others show a creepy sort of cluelessness not only about the implications of their actions but in general. At one point they have a brief discussion about the word "Amandla" which the demonstrators yelled as they approached lines of riot police. They are not sure what the word means. They did not make the effort to know the people who shared their country.
The most important part for me occurred at the end. An activist explains that never in the history of the world did [I paraphrase here] "...so many people take so much shit for so long and did not burn the whole place down." And this I found the most moving part of Amandla. Think about those words for a minute. Then you may see why I look to South Africa, despite all its current troubles, as cause for optimism.
