Synopsis

When I tell people that I grew up in South Africa, they inevitably ask me how I could have supported living under the apartheid regime?

Looking back, it is hard to believe that a white minority managed to impose a political system that institutionalized racism and taught people to hate one another, and I constantly ask myself how it was all possible?

I want to look at the way the apartheid government managed to justify itself to the white population and impose its laws on the black majority. What long-term effects did it have in the minds of individuals.I want to recognize the complex role of myself and my peers as victims, bystanders and accomplices, in order to understand our function as privileged, white South Africans during the apartheid regime. How did we choose to fight back? Where did we just give in?

I do not want to justify or pardon my own conduct, but try and understand the actions of the ’common man’ in extraordinary circumstances and see how personal stories fit into the larger historical context.“Truth and reconciliation” told us to wipe away the horrors of the past and start from scratch, but I want to see if amnesia is possible and if it is really better to forget.

Despite the optimistic vision that is often portrayed of post-Mandela South Africa, it has become one of the most violent countries in the world. It is obvious that this violence is related to our history and I firmly believe that the past cannot be brushed away, but needs to be confronted head on, in order to be exorcised.

By telling personal stories, it is my aim to explore the clichés of race in South Africa and show the complexity of the situation in the country today, that goes beyond ‘black and white’.

Finally, White Men Can’t Toyi-Toyi! is not only about South Africa’s past, but touches on universal themes: Is it simply part of human nature to take care of one’s own comfort at the expense of other’s misery? What motivates certain individuals to risk their lives to help others? In an ever-shrinking globalized world, how many people look on passively as thousands die in Darfour or American troops invade Iraq?