Endgame

Former Cabinet Minister Peter Hain MP  writes about his experiences as an anti-apartheid campaigner.

"Fierce emotions welled up inside me as I watched the conclusion to Endgame, the marvellous and gripping account of the fall of apartheid.

Why? Not just because few could failed to be moved about the extraordinary miracle of the transition from old to new South Africa, from vicious racist tyranny to rainbow democracy. But because it was very personal to me and my family. My parents, a young white South African born couple with four children, were amongst the very few whites brave enough to resist apartheid. They risked and ultimately sacrificed almost everything to join the struggle. 

As an eleven year old I was awoken in the early hours to be told they had been jailed without charge and had to help look after my younger brother and two sisters. Later they were issued with banning orders preventing them from taking part in politics, from meeting more than one other person at a time and even visiting our schools to talk to our teachers.

A close family friendly became the first white to be hanged in the struggle, and I had to step in as a fifteen year old to read the commemoration at his funeral because others, like my parents, were prevented from doing so.

In the end the government stopped my dad working and we had to leave for exile in London in 1966.

Sixteen at the time, three years later I found myself propelled into national notoriety in Britain, as leader of the militant campaign to stop whites-only South African sports tours. I led invasions of rugby and cricket pitches to disrupt matches, sitting down non-violently, and placing the visiting Springboks under siege wherever they went.

Under this pressure the campaign succeeded in stopping the 1970 South African cricket tour, and the country was propelled into almost total isolation from all sports from the Olympics to football. Nelson Mandela told me the sports boycott had a tremendous impact in denying sports-mad whites the international recognition they craved.

Our direct action tactics, though non-violent, provoked uproar and I was prosecuted for conspiracy in a four week Old Bailey trial, narrowly escaping prison after being acquitted on all but the most minor charges after the jury could not agree on the verdict.

In June 1972 the infamous apartheid security police who killed Nelson Mandela's comrades world-wide, sent me a letter bomb which would also have blown up my parents, sister and our home. Fortunately it had a technical fault and was able to be defused by Metropolitan Police anti-terror officers.

Three years later I was a framed for a bank theft near my flat in Putney, South West London, believed to have been committed by a South African double. It was a bizarre and deeply unsettling experience but truth triumphed eventually and I was acquitted after another Old Bailey trial.

But, during the anti-apartheid struggle, my tribulations were minor compared with the many tens of thousands of blacks who were killed, injured, tortured, beaten up, or jailed for life like Nelson Mandela. Meanwhile, millions of blacks lived in terrible poverty and misery, whilst their white rulers (like my parents could have been) enjoyed the best lifestyles in the world.  

The indignities suffered by blacks were in some ways worse even than the poverty. Prevented from living where they chose, from moving about without permission, from voting, from going to good schools or attending decent hospitals reserved for whites, doing all but the most menial jobs, they were almost denied their  humanity - simply because they did not have white skins.

Apartheid - meaning separateness - was the worst racial tyranny the world has ever seen.

But ultimately it was overthrown by a combination of courageous internal resistance, its own grotesque contradictions which increasingly hit business, and the pressure of the international anti-apartheid movement. Nelson Mandela emerged from prison after 27 years and later was elected President - a political miracle.

Before he was released, however, there were vital secret negotiations between leaders of his African National Congress, and intermediaries for the ruling white regime, coordinated by Michael Young who worked for Consolidated Gold Fields.

Endgame brilliantly captures those vital talks, a pacy thriller and a human mission which moved me greatly and I know will grip everyone else too."

Former Cabinet Minister Peter Hain MP's  new biography of Nelson Mandela will be published by Octopus later this year.