Our history is no more
than a series of incredible events.
Every one of us can influence its course.
(dramatic music)
The most infinitesimal of our decisions
can influence the future of humanity.
To know the past is to foresee the future.
December 2018, suburbs of Pretoria, South Africa.
After days spent hidden in their cellar,
these last white inhabitants are finally
being evacuated by the United Nations Intervention Force.
Their neighbors did not get this chance.
Earlier in the day, they were lynched by the crowd.
Crushed by decades of a racist and brutal white government,
the Black communities of South Africa
have finally seized power.
Nobody was able to prevent the outburst
of violence which followed.
Thirsting for revenge, the oppressed
have turned into oppressors.
Fearing an ethnic cleansing, a fast intervention force
was sent to evacuate the white
populations to neighboring Zimbabwe.
But none of that ever happened.
In 1962, a small grain of sand who would lead
to the end of the apartheid government
and the election of the first
Black president of South Africa.
(eerie music)
1836, the southern tip of Africa.
Thousands of Boer settlers leave
their home to migrate inland.
May 26, 1948, the national party wins the elections.
The new government has a free hand to establish apartheid.
August 5th, 1962, the Black leader Nelson Mandela
is found and arrested by South African police.
These three key events led South Africa
to the verge of a civil war during
the terrible period of apartheid.
December 16th, 1838, southern tip of Africa.
Mortally wounded by a gunshot,
this young Zulu warrior knows he is going to die.
(gun fires) (groaning)
Before him, the river is red
with the blood of his brothers in arms.
(gun fires)
They have no succeeded in repelling these demons
who came to steal their land.
His eyes are becoming glazed.
In his mind, he remembers the ancient tales
of white men invading the continent centuries ago.
(rhythmic music)
These white men are Dutch.
They are here to found a colony
at the southern tip of the African continent.
1652 marks the beginning of a story
as complicated as it is violent.
During the following years, the small colony
develops with the arrival of French,
German, and Scandinavian settlers
all carried by Protestant faith.
But quickly, the colony is short of manpower and space.
The first issue is solved by the massive influx of slaves.
The second is settled with the conquest
of bordering territories inhabited
by Khoikhoi, Bushmen, or Xhosa people.
But unlike the Europeans, the natives don't own firearms.
(gun fires)
The white settlers, soon to be called Boers,
a term referring to peasants,
take root on the African continent.
However, in 1795, the balance of power changes dramatically.
(explodes)
The British Empire seizes the colony
and imposes its authority over the Boers.
A minority group at the beginning,
the British population booms
with a massive arrival of migrants.
In 1828, English became the dominant language.
Anglicanism has emerged as the state religion.
British law has replaced Dutch law.
The Boers fear that their identity
is in danger of disappearing.
In 1833, slavery is abolished by the British.
Alarmed, the Boers see their whole
economic system called into question.
During the following years, more than 15,000 Boers
flee the British order and migrate inland
in order to carry on with their lifestyle, a true exodus.
This central and founding event of the Boers
and their identity is called the Great Trek.
In search of virgin lands, they come across
territories occupied by African Tribes.
In 1838, they enter the land of the expanding Zulu Empire.
War is inevitable.
On December 16th, 15,000 Zulus surround a few hundred
settlers entrenched in a circle of wagons.
(guns firing) (people yelling)
But unlike the Boers, the Zulus don't have guns.
3,000 young warriors are massacred by gunfire.
The river of the battlefield, filled with Zulu blood,
will later take the name of Blood River.
Welcome to memory of humanity.
Every historical event, regardless of how small,
is recorded and connected.
You only need to change one to upset all the others.
Here, we're able to control time,
analyze, and compare billions of events
in order to rewrite history in infinite ways.
The Boers believe they are chosen by God
and invested with a divine mission.
Gradually, they will start to believe in their own destiny
and compare their own faith with the exodus
of the Jews in the Old Testament.
Over time, the Great Trek becomes
the foundation stone of Boer society.
The Boers are convinced of the divine intervention
and the miraculous victory in the Battle of Blood River.
This idea could be compared to the Mormon ideology
during the conquest of the West.
Invested with a divine mission,
they migrated to inhospitable, wide land
in order to preserve their beliefs and way of life.
Now an inward looking community
and carried along by their steadfast faith,
the Boers developed their own concept.
Persecuted, they have no other solution
than surviving at all cost.
1902, Republic of the Transvaal.
This Boers farmer has lost everything.
After years of heroic fighting
against British troops, (farmer yelling)
he has seen his government accepting to surrender.
Back home, in the farm he built by himself,
he learnt of the death of his wife
and his three children in one
of the many British internment camps.
Like every Boer, he knows their fate
has reached a tragic turning point.
Someday, his people will be doomed
if he and his peers don't do anything.
Everything started a few decades ago.
Following the Great Trek, the Boers founded many republics.
The Natalia Republic, immediately annexed by the British,
then the Transvaal and the Orange Free State,
officially tolerated by the crown.
Everything changed when in 1866 diamonds,
then gold, are discovered on their land.
For the empire, missing such a financial
Godsend was out of the question.
These territories become the scene
of two wars between white settlers,
two dreadful modern wars.
Indeed, the British army is well ahead of its time.
Scorched-earth policy, fortified houses, human shields.
There are tens of thousands of Boers civilians,
mainly women and children,
crammed into about 50 internment camps.
28,000 of them will never return.
A quarter of the Afrikaner population vanishes.
The survivors are traumatized for decades.
These white farmers, already full of resentment and hatred,
are afraid to see their nation dying out
in a vast territory inhabited with Black men
and ran by powerful Anglo-Saxons.
They have no choice.
They must adapt themselves or they will disappear.
They reluctantly submit to the crown.
The Union of South Africa is created in 1910
and immediately joins the commonwealth.
The symbolism of words.
The word Boer means peasant.
In English, its pronunciation is similar to the word boar.
Confronted with the threat to be assimilated to the British,
the Boers assert their identity.
They begin to refer to themselves by the word Afrikaner.
This term designates any person speaking Afrikaans,
a language derived from Dutch and tinged
with French, Portuguese, and native languages.
The word Afrikaans, which means African,
allows them to assert some legitimacy
on this new continent and to turn their back
on their distant European roots.
On the other hand, British people are called
Outlanders, which means foreigners.
The Dutch term (speaking in foreign language),
or leaguer in English,
referring to the wagon fort formed
by the settlers every evening
to protect themselves from the attacks,
gradually becomes the symbol of the status of Afrikaners,
permanently surrounded and in the minority,
fighting to the death.
There is often a greater meaning behind a mere word.
(soft, dramatic music)
March 21st, 1960.
This Black man is in a state of shock.
He has been fighting for years against the deep
inequalities which poison his country.
Today, all of his beliefs are being dashed.
Legal action won't be enough,
not against this racist and criminal government.
As a lawyer, he saw the situation getting worse
year after year, law after law, quite legally.
Since the British arrived, Black people
have always been reduced to a cheap workforce.
Areas had been segregated on the pretext of fighting crime,
but in fact, for economic reasons.
While white people live in town and own good lands,
Black people have inherited infertile
soil and industrial areas.
Just after World War I, while South Africa
gets its autonomy from the British Empire,
Afrikaner nationalists fight to win back absolute power
and expel the English-speaking middle class from it.
For us, for your children!
But for white workers, there is a new danger,
the cheap black workforce, which threatens their jobs,
and an ever-increasing Black population.
There is an expression for this danger, Swart Gevaar.
The Black Peril. (dramatic music)
On May 26th, 1948, the elections are won
by the pro-Afrikaner National Party.
A policy of separate development
is immediately established by the government.
The apartheid regime is born.
Obsessed with the survival of their way
of life and traditions, Afrikaner leaders
take refuge behind unjust laws
and acquire a traditional arsenal.
The Population Registration Act defines racial membership
according to subjective requirements,
all South Africans being classified
into one of four racial groups based on their skin color.
White, black, Indian, and mixed race or colored.
The Group Areas Act sets boundaries
for authorized residential areas.
Black populations pack into townships,
which are overpopulated, second-class towns.
The immorality amendment act
forbids interracial sexual relationships,
and owning a passbook for every Black man
over 16 is made compulsory.
In 1951, a law lays the foundations of the Bantustan system.
10 divided territories are designated
to become new Black nations.
Black people have no other choice
than moving from their homes
and becoming citizens of these tribal homelands.
10 million of them effectively lose
their South African citizenship.
In 1953, racial segregation becomes legal.
Signs specify the rights of each person
according to his or her skin color.
Getting deeper and deeper into
an obsession law and order neurosis,
the apartheid system imposes a state of emergency,
massively resorts to the military and the police,
disbands protest movements,
and locks up political opponents,
all of which being completely legal.
The numerous anti-apartheid demonstrations
are repressed and blood is shed.
The country slides into a spiral of violence.
(dramatic music)
March 21st, 1960, township of Sharpeville.
We need some more supplies now!
Thousands of demonstrators burn
their passbooks in front of a police station.
Tension rises.
Policemen aim their gun at the crowd.
(guns fire) A shot is fired.
It's a bloodbath.
Many children have died among the estimated 60 casualties.
World public opinion is deeply shocked.
So is this Black man who decides this day
to modify his strategy and commence armed conflict.
His name is Nelson Mandela.
Withdrawal into oneself.
Only 20% of the population is Afrikaner
when the apartheid system is established.
Fearing for its survival, the system becomes more radical
and protects itself with segregationist laws.
White leaders believe their only way
to keep power is through repression.
Black people, humiliated and deprived
of almost all their civic rights,
become second-class citizens.
Nowadays in the state of Israel,
Palestinians face massive transfers of people,
strictly separated population areas, a system of passbooks,
and the use of Palestinians as a cheap workforce.
Even though the causes are different,
the consequences are similar,
communities withdrawing into themselves,
violent outbursts, strong resentments
which become, with time, insurmountable.
(people yelling)
Sunday, February 11th, 1990, Cape Town area.
The prison officer is living an historic moment.
He is aware that his country
is about to change drastically.
He also knows that the 71-year-old prisoner
who has just been released is different
from the man who arrived in prison 27 years ago.
(somber music)
Nelson Mandela started his political career 46 years earlier
when he joined the ANC, the African National Congress,
which fights for the Black civic rights.
As an advocate of non-violence,
he is deeply shocked by the Sharpeville massacre.
In 1961, he takes part in the creation
of the ANC military wing, the Umkhonto we Sizwe,
the Spear of the Nation.
(gun clicking)
Mandela, a man of law, goes underground
and plans a campaign of sabotage.
(explodes) (people yelling)
August 5th, 1962, Mandela is arrested.
Two years later, he is sentenced to life imprisonment.
He is incarcerated in the prison of Robben Island,
an island off Cape Town.
At this maximum security prison,
he suffers from humiliations and intimidations.
Torture and beatings are a common practice.
(water splashes)
For years, while his country locks
itself into hatred and violence,
Mandela favors the Ubuntu philosophy
of respect for human life,
tolerance, conciliation, and no desire for revenge.
(people yelling)
Outside of prison, nothing stops
his former companions in arms from pursuing his release.
Fighting becomes his wife Winnie's reason for living.
(people yelling)
New, more radical protest movements emerge.
The situation is escalating.
In 1976, in Soweto, unprecedented riots
break out in this overpopulated township.
A state of emergency is declared.
The army intervenes.
There are hundreds of casualties.
(man groans) (people yelling)
These riots, broadcasted by televisions all over the world,
shock international public opinion.
In a demented effort to maintain control over their country,
some South African leaders ask their scientists
to reduce the fertility rate of Black women.
The ANC military wing intensifies its attacks
and even assaults the army headquarters with riots.
In 1986, an indefinite state of emergency
is imposed in the whole country.
Martial law is established.
The government is at war with 54 townships.
In order to cope with this emergency situation,
many apartheid laws are abolished,
but the country is still on the verge of collapse.
In 1989, the nationalist F.W. De Klerk comes to power.
The worst is to be expected,
but the politician is a pragmatic man.
He knows that Afrikaners must adapt themselves once again.
Otherwise, they will disappear.
It is now time to make concessions.
On February 11th, 1990, after more than
a quarter of a century spent in prison,
Nelson Mandela is released and is a free man.
The man watches the crowd,
then raises his fist as a sign of victory.
The white police officer who watches Mandela
going away is desperately tormented
by the fear of a Black revenge
for the dark years of apartheid.
(upbeat electronic music)
We are now at a point of divergence.
A point of divergence is a key moment
across roads in our history where our world
can swing from one side or the other.
Mandela, at the time of his arrest,
had followed an intensive military training
in order to run guerrilla operations.
What would have happened if that day
of August 1962 he had escaped from his pursuers?
From his first actions, he would have become
the main target of the South African Secret Service.
Considered to be a terrorist, the main goal
would certainly have been to kill him.
Even if he had managed to escape
from the government death squads,
he would have been transformed
by going underground and fighting.
Being more radical would have prevented him
from becoming a symbol of unity and forgiveness.
His wife, Winnie, would not have needed
to struggle for her husband's release.
Consequently, she would not have become
this controversial icon of the fight against apartheid.
2018, Soweto.
Born in this shantytown,
this woman nearly hasn't any way out.
She is one of the millions of left behind
of the South African society.
(somber music)
For her, the situation doesn't seem
to have improved since the end of apartheid.
(people cheering)
And yet, in 1990 when Nelson Mandela's release
generated global attention,
a wind of hope swept the country.
But the true reason for opening up
the political spectrum was pragmatic.
The country was crippled by economic sanctions
and international embargoes.
Nearly half of the multinationals had
already left the country.
The removal of embargoes was made possible
thanks to Mandela's release from prison
and the abolition of remaining segregationist laws.
It is the end of apartheid.
De Klerk has saved South Africa from bankruptcy.
In 1993, both Mandela and de Klerk
received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mandela was insistent about de Klerk
receiving this prize as well.
On April 27th, 1994, Mandela becomes
the first president of the Republic of South Africa.
As soon as he is elected, he works for reconciliation
between the different communities,
a daunting task considering
the deep resentments on either side.
President Mandela establishes
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
and gives it the power to grant amnesty
to those responsible for apartheid offenses.
A bloodbath is avoided thanks
to Mandela's wisdom and forgiveness.
However, he decides not to run for reelection.
The reconstruction of the country will go on without him.
Nowadays, although South Africa generates 1/5th
of the GDP of the African continent,
more than half of its population
still packs into shantytowns unfit for habitation.
(glass shatters)
But that is another story.
Nowadays, South Africa
remains a country of inequalities.
(somber music)
72% of the lands still belong to white people.
Unemployment in the Black community is close to 40%.
Even the ANC is undermined with bribery.
A minority of poor white people
who were protected by apartheid in the past
live today in a precarious situation,
and are thus driven to move into shantytowns.
What was a racial segregation before
has now become a social class segregation.
Some people start feeling nostalgic for apartheid.
Some others even blame Mandela
for having betrayed his people.
(dramatic music)
South Africa remains a complicated country.
Its government is plagued by rampant corruption.
In 1991, after years of struggles,
South Africans have not only succeeded
in deconstructing this racial policy
but they did it without falling into a complete civil war.
Thanks to Nelson Mandela's action,
they have overcome their desire for revenge.
Today, the rainbow nation,
plagued by the challenges of the 21st century,
is aware that it must fight once again for equality.
(dramatic orchestral music)