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CNN Live Sunday
Has South Africa Changed Much Since Apartheid?
Aired September 09, 2001 - 17:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: One of most prominent African- Americans in the Bush administration is coming out against reparations for descendants of slaves. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says it is "better to look forward," in her words, and not point fingers backward. Her comment come just one day after the United Nations Conference on Racism ends in Durban, South Africa. Delegates there cited the wrongs of slavery and recommended debt relief to African nations, but some say that's not enough.
CNN's Charlayne Hunter-Gault explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As you could expect, with so many different voices, conflict over a range of issues. Some South Africans complain that the conference was detracting from bread-and-butter issues at home: poverty and despair arising from the discrimination against blacks from South Africa's recent apartheid past.
(on camera): Are most of you unemployed?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't mind reparations in conference here in South Africa because the rest is (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
HUNTER-GAULT (voice-over): But despite the noise that threatened to drown out any rational debate on the issues, delegates say this was a conference whose time had come.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It can help because we want them to form a network of indigenous people so that we can see how we can fight for our rights.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is first time that trans-Atlantic slave trade and reparations has been put on the international agenda. Post-Durban for us is the organizing of what we're calling Millions for Reparations.
HUNTER-GAULT (on camera): But what are people feeling and experiencing outside the tightly secured forums of controversy and debate at the U.N. Conference Against Racism? We came here to the University of Natal to get a sample. (voice-over): It's a campus mirroring South African realities, it's colonial and apartheid past, it's current divisions, it's still unsteady steps towards transformation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Affirmative action I think is probably more causing a problem rather than solving it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that affirmative action is a good thing because in order to balance the playing fields for all and to bring about a situation whereby there is equality for all and fear and hatred is put away.
HUNTER-GAULT: And can hatred, anger and discrimination be overcome?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think there's always going to be racism on one level or another, you know?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You get used to each other's differences maybe; like maybe we just got thrown together too soon and it's too different.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) can be overcome. And by virtue of the fact that South Africa has overcome apartheid, anything is possible. You just have to be positive.
HUNTER-GAULT: Does the racism conference matter?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are they going to tell somebody, you know, you can't call someone a certain name or you can't do this, or this is against the law because you're going to have a document written up and then take no action on it.
HUNTER-GAULT: This 20-year-old law student agrees, but says attending the conference was life changing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So if we start from this small level at the university as the community which we know, then it will be easier for to us move up to the broader levels.
HUNTER-GAULT (on camera): And you feel reenergized by the conference?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have been very much. It just gives me this -- it gives me a positive outlook.
HUNTER-GAULT (voice-over): An answer heard over and over again at this conference as delegates pack their bags to go to homes in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent and beyond, their spirit reminding of the days of the civil rights movement in America when the students protesting in the streets used to sing an old spiritual: "Ain't going to let nobody turn me 'round."
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, CNN, Durban, South Africa.
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