South Africa: Improvisations

1. A black woman works as a domestic for a white family in

Johannesburg. She has just had a baby. The white "madame" tells her
black domestic that she must send her child to the bantustans or lose
her job. Work is hard to find.
2. A fourteen year old "colored" high school student and her father
discuss whether she should be allowed to attend a political rally. He
insists it's quite dangerous to participate in events like this one. She
maintains that despite the danger she wants to go.
3. In black townships in South Africa, all high school students are
supposed to carry ID cards proving that they are, in fact, students.
Several white soldiers confront a young black man and demand to see
his ID document. He has burned his card in a protest bonfire held
sometime earlier near the school.
4. Several black children are playing on a beach in Durban. The beach
is officially designated for whites only. A white person angrily confronts
these children. A sympathetic white sits nearby.
5. A person charged with high treason by the government is in hiding.
She comes to a family she knows well to ask that she be allowed to
stay with them for a period of time.
6. A number of Muslim children in Cape Town have been killed by the
police. The police have refused to release the bodies. By Islamic
tradition, the burial of the dead is supposed to take place as soon after
the death as possible. Several members from the Muslim community
classified "colored" go to the police to demand the return of the
bodies.
7. Two Rhodes University professors are drinking together in a popular
college tavern in Grahamstown. The wife of one of the professors has
been in government detention under the State of Emergency for 40
days. The man who is head of the South African Special Branch (the
equivalent of the FBI) in Grahamstown walks into the tavern with a
student both professors know.
8. The first political rally since the State of Emergency began will be
held at a hall in a "colored" neighborhood in Cape Town. Many rallies in
the past have been broken up by police with whips and tear gas. A
family discusses whether to attend the rally. They are divided on their
opinions.

9. It is early in the morning. Special Branch officers break into an

apartment of a number of students, one of whom is black. The
apartment is in a white neighborhood of Johannesburg. The officers
begin interrogating the students about their studies, their political
activities, their living arrangement.
10. The local civic association in a Port Elizabeth township has
announced a consumer boycott of white owned stores until army
troops get out of the black townships. A group of young people
discover a woman returning from Port Elizabeth with goods purchased
at a white-owned supermarket.
11. A young boy arrested by police for throwing rocks at a police van is
threatened with prison unless he turns informer. Prisons in South Africa
are exceptionally dangerous and rife with violence and gang warfare.
12. A black mother watched as her seven year old child was beaten
and arrested by South African police. Before the police van leaves, she
pleads with the police to release her son.
13. An Indian teacher, father of three children, tries to decide whether
to join a political rally in which students have invited him to participate.
He and his wife want very much to model values of courage and
democracy for their children. But if he loses his job, he loses his
housing subsidy and they would be without work and without a home.
The family discusses the dilemma.
14. Recently, a white reporter in East London who works for a
newspaper critical of apartheid, and his wife who teachers young
children, were preparing to leave for a party. Someone fired through
their front window and shot the woman in the back. She was rushed to
the hospital and survived. Two days later his car was firebombed. On
her return from the hospital they discuss what to do.
15. A number of black students are having their regular Student
Representative Council meeting. These meetings are considered illegal
by the South African government. As the students begin, in walks the
principal who confronts them about the nature of their meeting.
16. A young man who is classified "colored" is very light skinned. He
has decided to "pass" for white and live in a white neighborhood and
get a job usually reserved for whites. He is confronted by a group of
his "colored" friends about his decision to pass.

17. A black policeman is returning home in the township from his work.
He is stopped by a group of community residents and challenged on
his decision to work for the white government as a "collaborator."
18. A young white South African man has just received his conscription
notice ordering him into the army. He will either be sent to Namibia or
into one of the black townships. If he resists, he faces six years in
prison. He is strongly opposed to apartheid as are the other young
people who live in his house. he and his friends discuss his decision.