South Africa: The Children of Paradise - Episode 1

Seriously...

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.1 • 885 Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Three decades after the momentous transition from Apartheid to a democratic South Africa, Fergal Keane returns to see what happened to the hopes and promises of a better nation. In a famous speech thirty years ago, as he collected the Nobel Peace Prize, Nelson Mandela spoke of a “common humanity” in which all South Africans would live “like the children of paradise.”

As the BBC’s South Africa correspondent at the time, Fergal Keane, along with his colleague and friend Milton Nkosi, lived through some of the country’s most desperate times. It was a period of extreme violence and loss, but also of great hope.

Now Fergal and Milton travel through the country, re-visiting some of the places and people they encountered in the lead up to the end of Apartheid. Through this series they will explore how and why paradise was lost. In this first episode they return to Tembisa, a township on the edges of Johannesburg, searching for Cynthia who they first met one winter's morning in 1993, huddling with her children under plastic sheeting.

Presenter: Fergal Keane Producer: John Murphy

Transcript

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0:00.0	This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box.
0:05.0	The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from.
0:09.0	And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape.
0:12.0	The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape.
0:12.5	The IRA inmates who found a way.
0:14.5	I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path
0:19.5	through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.
0:25.0	The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them.
0:28.5	Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:35.0	BBC Sounds.
0:35.0	BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.
0:39.0	Hello and welcome to Seriously from BBC Radio 4.
0:44.0	I'm Fergalkeen and you're about to hear the first episode of our Radio 4 series South Africa, The Children of Paradise.
0:52.0	30 years ago I was the BBC's Southern Africa correspondent
0:56.0	and witnessing the extraordinary transition
0:59.0	from a place where black and white were separated at every level. I'll never forget people not being allowed
1:05.7	to sit on the same park bench, to go on the same buses, not allowed to stay in the same hotel.
1:10.8	And I was witnessing the move from all of that to a morning where I saw black people
1:16.4	voting for the first time.
1:18.5	It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.
1:22.4	Now 30 years later I want to see what's become of the democracy
1:26.7	that was created on that day. To listen to the rest of the series Just Search
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