The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

Some space was set aside for presenting non‐ANC resistance lives as hidden histories of
achievement, and as exemplary records of perseverance. An example of such a
documentary was the biography of Robert Sobukwe screened on SABC shortly after
Human Rights Day, 21 March 1997. 15 It was screened to commemorate Sobukwe’s
leadership of the campaign against pass laws on that date in 1960 which led to the killing
of 68 and injury to 186 at Sharpeville after police opened fire on a crowd of protesters. The
documentary sought to remember Sobukwe as “the man who initiated the beginning of
the end of apartheid”. The filmmaker Kevin Harris sought to depict Sobukwe’s “Messiah‐
like” image and his “incredible consistency in integrity”. Sobukwe was, in Harris’ view, “a
national role model for everyone”. 16
Perhaps one of the most significant moments for television political biography in the ‘new’
South Africa was the screening of two documentaries on Steve Biko during September
1997, the month which marked the twentieth anniversary of his murder in detention.
Together, these documentaries sought to celebrate the life and times of “one of our great
historical figures”. 17 Biko’s son, Nkosinathi and his friend Nhlanhla Dakile made the first
as a filmic journey of discovery and healing. 18 It focused on the memories of Biko’s family
and comrades, and the ways in which they came to terms with the loss of a “remarkable
man”. 19 The second documentary, made by Matsamela Manaka presented Biko as “a
questions of family, music and the politics of the personal. See Heart and Stone, Directed by Bridget
Thompson for Tomas Films, 1998.
15 Robert Sobukwe: A Tribute to Integrity, Kevin Harris Productions, 1997. It drew on the biography by
Benjamin Pogrund, Sobukwe and Apartheid (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1990) as well as interviews
with the author. Pogrund, former deputy editor of the Rand Daily Mail and its erstwhile reporter on
‘African affairs’ was a long‐time friend of Sobukwe. His efforts at image construction and his
relationship with Sobukwe are important to consider in studying the relations of cultural production
involved in the production of lives. See below.
16 See publicity material in Sunday Life, 23 March 1997, p 21; See also Bejamin Pogrund, ‘Prisoner,
Prisoner, Prisoner + 1’, Sunday Life, 23 March 1997.
17 Sunday Life, 7 September 1997, p 30.
18 Bantu Steven Biko: Beacon of Hope, Produced by Nkosinathi Biko and Nhlanhla Dakile, Quattro Media
Productions, 1997.
19 Sunday Life, 7 September 1997, p 30.
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