Freedom’s promise, possibilities and reality

Every South African should see the movie Mapantsula, released in 1988 to international acclaim. It was only officially released in SA after the political changes of 1990.

I only got to see it in 1994, and it was as powerful then as it was when I watched it last week.

The director, Oliver Schmitz, has undertaken a restoration of the movie and it is now available in beautiful high definition.

Schmitz wrote the script with Thomas Matsobane Mogotlane, who sadly died in 1993 at the age of 40. Mogotlane was a huge talent, and his performance in the movie as the lead, named Panic, is riveting.

Not only did Mogotlane co-author the script, he also acted as casting director. The cast is stellar: Thembi Mtshali-Jones, Dolly Rathebe, Peter se-Puma, Simon Mabhunu Sabela, Darlington Michaels, Nana Motijoane and so many other SA greats.

It is a simple story. The year is 1987. SA is in political turmoil.

More than 20,000 people — many of them children — are in police detention without trial.

Riots are breaking out everywhere in protest against apartheid. White youth are refusing to join the apartheid army. International sanctions are biting. The economy is collapsing.

That does not move Johannes “Panic” Mzolo, a petty thief and robber who lives in a back room in Soweto.

In the daytime he picks pockets, steals from shops and participates in any criminal activity that will put money in his pocket and some bread on his table.

He lives for clothes and for enjoyment. At weekends he goes clubbing and drinking.

The struggle against apartheid? The man is too busy surviving.

One day the “apolitical” Panic is arrested when he finds himself inadvertently caught up in a protest. He is bundled into a police van and lands in a cell at the notorious John Vorster Square alongside United Democratic Front activists.

His cell mates embark on a hunger strike, but Panic doesn’t care. While they reject the police food, he tucks in with gusto.

It also turns out that, in previous brushes with the law, Panic had sold his fellow gangsters out in exchange for a shorter prison sentence.

Panic is a tragic figure. Oppressed under apartheid, he displays no national consciousness.

He is immoral, amoral, disloyal, selfish and interested only in his own survival.

He is angry at the system, but unable to process what he is feeling or to crystallise a way to fight this system.

The police try to blackmail him to spy on the activists and to use him to bring trumped-up charges against a local community and trade union leader named Duma (played by an outstanding Se-Puma).

We know the stakes are high. Panic is beaten and tortured by the police.

We know that, in real life, the security police killed tens of activists by throwing or pushing them out of the tenth floor windows of John Vorster Square.

Panic is put through the same horrific torture and at one point he is pulled back just before he tumbles out the window.

Through a series of flashbacks, we see Panic struggle with his conscience. Should he give up what he knows about Duma and other activists, or should he listen to his conscience and refuse to work with the murderous security police?

Mogotlane plays Panic wonderfully — his anger and his joy are fully drawn, his anguish and doubts beautifully and sensitively rendered.

He is an unlikeable character, a petty gangster, a bully, yet you feel his pain and his dilemma. What will he do?

I love this movie because it has so many messages for us all. For example, EFF leader Julius Malema insults President Cyril Ramaphosa about his policeman father.

Every black South African household under apartheid had policemen, apartheid civil servants and all sorts of “collaborators” among its relatives.

Ask Jacob Zuma — his father was an apartheid police officer, too. Like Panic, many of our struggle heroes were petty thieves before they became liberators. We should all be humble.

The movie reminds you of the mistakes we have made in the past 30 years. For example, we lied to ourselves that our liberation movement leaders are perfect and would never be corrupt, incompetent or turn against their own people.

If we had known that they are like Panic, that they are doing the right thing by fighting for our freedom, but that they have human weaknesses and frailties, we would perhaps have built better systems for the day when they became rapacious thieves.

I love this movie because it underlines the real breakthrough and promise of the 1994 moment — the possibility that we can all change.

Former oppressors can rise above their prejudices and become real South Africans. The oppressed have the chance and ability to be leaders and servants of all the people.

What does Panic do, ultimately? You will have to watch the movie’s shattering final scene to find out.