Cry Freedom

CRY FREEDOM:

BASED ON 'BIKO' AND 'ASKING FOR TROUBLE'

BY DONALD WOODS:

- Subtitle -

Completely fixed: titler

What is it?

What is it?

No!

This is the English-language

service of Radio South Africa.

Here is the news,

read by Magnus Randall.

Police raided Crossroads, the illegal

township near Cape Town this morning,

after warning the squatters to vacate

the area in the interests of public health.

Several people were found

without work permits,

and many are being sent back

to their respective homelands.

There was no resistance to

the raid and many illegals

voluntarily presented

themselves to the police.

- I think you ought to have a look at him.

- Give me his chart.

Were you listening

to the radio?

If they'd caught him,

we'd have heard.

If the police had got Steve, especially with

the posters in the car and everything,...

...you don't think that...?

Is that mine, Sister?

You don't think that'd

be the first news item?

No, because if the people

know they have him,

then they have to be more careful

about how they treat him.

- They think he's here.

- I must get back.

Let's have some coffee.

If the police in Cape Town had taken him,

that lot would be the first to know.

I think he's hiding.

He was with Peter Jones,

and Peter has no pass problem.

If Steve was arrested,

Peter would have phoned me.

Pass the milk.

Finished, Mr. Woods?

Yes, thanks.

- How'd you get these?

- Ah, we have ways.

- Do we dare to print them?

- For these I'll risk it.

- Yes, sir?

- Would you ask Tony to come in?

- I'll even give you a by-line.

- You're a prince.

They put me away, yours'll be the first

name on my lips. What about Mr. Biko?

Shall I use his name in the story?

His picture was everywhere.

- Think there was a meeting?

- There must have been one recently.

Biko couldn't have been

there of course, but,

one of his people, mouthing off

about black consciousness,...

- ... that I'd say was almost a certainty.

- Uh, I've rejigged it just a bit.

No, leave him out of it.

I want the police blamed for that raid.

- I'll take care of Biko in an editorial.

- Yeah, yeah. Ok.

One bunch of lunatics saying

white supremacy justifies anything,

all we need is some black nutcase saying

black supremacy's going to save the world.

I would like to know who's

responsible for this.

- May I ask who you are?

- Doctor Ramphele.

Doctor Ramphele.

I'll leave you.

I've read this paper long enough to

know you're not one of the worst,

so, it's all the more baffling,

that you would try to pass this

vicious fiction off as reasoned fact.

- Ah, well, Doctor...

- Ramphele.

Ramphele.

I've stuck my neck out on this paper to

take a stand against white prejudice.

But if you think that

means I'll go soft,

on some sensationalist

pushing black prejudice,

well, you've brought your

complaint to the wrong man.

Black prejudice?

That's not what

Steve's about at all.

Your Mr. Biko is building a wall of

black hatred in South Africa,...

...and I will fight him as

long as I sit in this chair.

What you do in that chair

is put words in his mouth.

And you know he can't answer

because he's banned.

- I believe I know what Mr. Biko is about.

- Well, you believe wrong!

And he can't come to you.

If you were the honest newsman you

claim to be, you ought to go and see him.

Look...

Where are you from?

From South Africa.

But I was one of two,

to be granted a scholarship

to Natal Medical School.

I'm a...

...a token of your white

paternalistic concern,

for the natives of this land.

Well, I'm glad we didn't

waste our money.

I know you're not a fool,

Mr. Woods...

But you are uninformed.

Steve Biko is one of the few people

who can still save South Africa.

He's in King William's

Town right now.

That's his banning area.

- Good morning.

- Good morning.

LEOPOLD STREET,

KING WILLIAM'S TOWN

- Mr. Donald Woods?

- Yes, I'm Donald Woods.

I'm Steve's wife. Please, come in.

He's expecting you.

Thank you.

But we're glad

you could come.

Father Russell got this for us.

You see, we're trying to make

a kind of community centre,

where black people can meet,

maybe have classes.

- The new dyes have arrived at last.

- Good, tell Tsinki.

- This way.

- Who's this one?

Oh, he's just a little

rascal like his father,

and even more trouble.

You'll find him out there.

Steve Biko?

- Are you Steve Biko?

- I am.

I would have met you

in the church, but,

as you know, I can only be

with one person at a time.

You see, if a third person comes

into the room, even to bring coffee,

that breaks the ban.

And the system, the police,

are just across the road.

But, of course, you would

approve of my banning.

No, I think your ideas are dangerous,

but, no, I don't approve of banning.

A true liberal.

It's not a title

I'm ashamed of,

though I know you regard

it with some contempt.

I just think that

a white liberal,...

...who clings to all the advantages

of his white world; jobs,

housing, education...

Mercedes...

...is perhaps not best qualified to tell

blacks how they should react to apartheid.

I wonder what sort of liberal

you'd make, Mr. Biko,

if you were the one who had the job,

the house and the Mercedes,

and the whites

lived in townships.

It's a charming idea.

It was good of you

to come, Mr. Woods.

I've wanted to meet

you for a long time.

They follow you everywhere?

They think they do.

- So this is it?

- Yes, this is it.

A clinic for black people,

staffed by black people,

run by a black doctor.

Was this her idea or yours?

Come on,

let me show you around.

It was a collective idea,

but we were lucky to have her.

And a white liberal doctor doing the same

thing wouldn't serve your purpose?

When I was a student, trying to qualify

for the jobs you people will let us have,...

...I suddenly realised it wasn't

just good jobs that were white.

The only history we read was made by

the white man, written by the white man.

Televisions, cars, medicines,

all invented by the white man.

Even football.

Now, in a world like that,

it's not hard to believe there's something

inferior about being born black.

We grow most of our own food here,

for the patients and some of the staff.

- And the church?

- Oh, that was here long before us.

But I began to think

this idea of inferiority

was an even bigger problem for us than

what the Afrikaners were doing to us.

That the black man had to believe he

had as much capacity to be a doctor,

a leader, as a white man.

So we tried to set this place up.

My own mistake was to put some

of those ideas down on paper.

And the government banned you.

And the fighting liberal editor

started attacking me.

I attacked you

for being racist.

- How old are you, Mr. Woods?

- 41, if that makes any difference.

Ah.

A white South African,

41 years old, a newspaper man.

Have you ever spent any

time in a black township?

- I've been to many...

- No, don't be embarrassed.

Except for the police, I don't think

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