Sue Williamson

No More Fairy Tales

 

The title ‘No More Fairy Tales’ for Sue Williamson’s new series of videos is derived from a quote by assassin apartheid Eugene de Kock describing the troubled South African situation in the eighties and attempting to justify his own actions. The quote is taken from Pumla Gobodo Madikizela’s book, A Human Being Died that Night.

 

Twenty years after the processes of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it is clear that there are still ‘no more fairy tales’.

 

In two new video works, the focus is on the reality that the painful trauma of apartheid deeply affected not only those who had to live through it, but continues to be a defining factor in the lives of their children.

 

It’s a pleasure to meet you is a conversation between two young people in their twenties - Candice Mama and Siyah Mgoduka - whose fathers were killed by apartheid assassin Eugene de Kock.  Candice’s family met de Kock in jail, and she has forgiven and even hugged him. Siyah describes security policeman Gideon Niewoudt giving him the finger when he was a child of 8 at the TRC hearings on the death of his father, and challenges Candice on the question of forgiveness.

 

 In What is this thing called freedom? three generations of the women of the Siwani family of Soweto talk about how apartheid affected each of them. Joyce remembers the days of deep apartheid, when black people could not enter facilities exclusively for whites, Buli was a school student in the eighties, losing a friend to the security police, and Buhle talks about the 2015 #FeesMustFall movement and the disillusionment of the youth of today.

 

The two videos can be viewed online:

 

It’s a pleasure to meet you:   https://vimeo.com/187357264 

 Password:  SW_pleasure

 

 What is this thing called freedom?.  https://vimeo.com/187974840 

 Password:  SW_freedom .