South Africa’s Immorality Act and India's Mars Orbiter Mission

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We start our programme with the story of a couple who were arrested under South Africa's Immorality Act, which banned sexual relationships between white people and non-white people.

Another law banned Inter-racial marriage in South Africa. In 1985, this was lifted. The first couple to marry under the new rules share their memories.

Our guest is Dr Susanne Klausen, The Brill Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State University in the USA. She talks about love, marriage and sex in Apartheid South Africa and the two laws that were both repealed on the same day in 1985.

We hear from a survivor of the Estonia ferry disaster in 1994, one of the deadliest shipping disasters since the Titanic. Also, Allen Hughes tells of the time when rap sensation, Tupac Shakur was fired from the crime movie Menace II Society.

And finally, the ‘moon man of India’ tells of the country’s momentous mission to Mars.

Contributors:

Dr Zureena Desai- arrested under the Immorality Act in South Africa. Suzanne La Clerc and Protas Madlala - the first inter-racial couple to get married under new rules in South Africa. Dr Susanne Klausen - The Brill Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State University in the USA. Urban Lambertson – survivor of the Estonia ferry disaster. Allen Hughes – filmmaker. Dr Mylswamy Annadurai- scientist working on India’s Mars Orbiter Mission.

(Photo: Dr Zureena Desai. Credit: Abrie Jantjies)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson,
0:10.0	the past brought to life by those who were there. This week we go back to 2014 and a huge moment for
0:16.6	India with the success of their Mars Orbiter mission. Next to cricket, I think this is time, the whole of India was watching.
0:24.6	Also, the rapper and the movie maker, the director Alan Hughes on his fallout with Tupac
0:29.5	Shakur over the making of the film Menaced to society.
0:33.0	He was mad because he was fired.
0:34.4	We were showing up through a music video and there he was laying in weight with liquor and weed and
0:38.3	I thought it was going to be a one-on-one and once I got the upper hand, which was very quickly,
0:43.6	ten guys jumped me and that was that.
0:47.0	And from 1994, one of the deadliest civilian shipping tragedies
0:51.0	since the Titanic, the sinking of the ferry Estonia.
0:54.1	I looked at two must, two must look to me, we need to act.
0:58.1	Hey, let's get up on deck seven.
1:00.4	We were aiming for getting outside where the lifeboat and life jackets are located.
1:05.0	That's coming up later in the podcast.
1:07.0	But before that we have a couple of stories to shed light on love, marriage and sex in apartheid South Africa. In 1969 a white man and an Indian
1:17.0	woman were put on trial in the country for conspiring to have sex. The case of
1:22.4	Dr. Zorina Desai and Professor John Blacking became one of the most
1:26.6	notorious examples of the state's attempts to enforce what was called the
1:30.4	immorality act. For many around the world it made a laughing stock of South
1:34.8	Africa's ruling National Party and its racist regime. Dr. DeSai has been talking to Vicky
1:40.5	Farncombe.
	...

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