By John Battersby
The story of Ginn Fourie and Letlapa Mphalele was so moving it didn’t even make me cry.
Instead it made me feel how unique and privileged it is to be South African and to come from a country which produces stories of such extraordinary power and resonance that it re-affirms the very essence of being human.
It had been a long day and I was tired and I nearly found an excuse not to go to a film which told the story of how a liberation army commander, who gave the order for an attack on revellers at the Heidelberg Tavern, had reconciled with the mother of a young girl who was killed in the attack.
“I just don’t think I can deal with the legacy of being South African any longer,” I said to my wife. “Let’s rather go out to dinner.”
But something drew me inexorably to South Africa House to meet these two people that had found each other against almost impossible odds and managed to establish a relationship based on the recognition of each others’ differences through personal honesty, courage and integrity.
The way that they have dealt with their own destinies, the respect they have developed for each other, the nature of the acceptance of each other’s apologies – one collective, one deeply personal – brought moments of moral and historical clarity which I have not experienced since the momentous event of the early 1990’s leading to the first democracy elections in 1994.
The take-aways for me were caught in two moments in the film – one where Letlapa, the APLA commander who ordered the attack, invites Ginn Fourie, the mother of her only daughter killed by his orders, to join him on his triumphant return to his rural village of Manaleng in Limpopo province.
During the visit which involves much celebration and singing a man from the village puts his head on Ginn’s shoulder and says: “It means so much that you understand….”
If I was going to cry that is the point in the film that I would have broken down and wept like the Vietnamese woman who takes visitors on a daily tour of the Mi Lai massacre site in Vietnam where Kim Puc was captured on film as a young girl screaming in pain as she fled aflame from napalm dropped by US planes.
The Vietnamese guide breaks down totally every day of her life because she says it is the only way that she can deal with the past and feel whole again when she wakes up in the morning.
Ginn Fourie, who admitted to howling uncontrollably most days for the first year after her daughter was killed, has found her peace by confronting the socio-political reality which led to the attack and connecting with the humanity of the man who gave the orders and in doing so recognised their common humanity and common South Africanness.
Letlapa said that he had experienced tremendous anger when the South African defence force killed five youths in an attack. This led him to order the Heidelberg Tavern bombing which he believed was frequented by South African policemen. Ginn Fourie made it her business to understand his anger and where it came from and her complicity.
Letlapa Mphalele helped me that night to understand the true meaning of spirituality. He is an atheist. Ginn is a Christian. They connected through their common spirituality rather than their religion.
“Spirituality means being connected to yourself and when you are connected to yourself you can connect with others and with the broader community,” Letlapa said on the panel following the showing of this extraordinary film.
The other intensely poignant moment was when Letlapa explains the impact that Ginn’s forgiveness had on him.
Letlapa says in the film it was like another window of life for him.
“Because for a long time, I had demonised the people I was fighting against but when people were reaching out and event agreeing to meet me, it was like opening a world that was, until then, closed to me.”
These two extraordinary South Africans have brought healing and reconciliation to a still traumatised post-apartheid South Africa in a way they could never have imagined because they did not set out to do it.
Ginn did what she had to do as a human being for her own peace of mind and Letlapa then had to integrate the extraordinary power of forgiveness which was such a central part of the greatness of the late Nelson Mandela and how he helped bring peace to a country bent on mutual destruction.
The lesson for us all is the power of story-telling as a cathartic and unifying process for a nation with a deeply divided past.
They have both transcended their victim status and are now true South Africa heroes. They are there for all of us who want to listen and learn from their example.
As the South African High Commissioner Obed Mlaba said in his opening remarks, forgiveness is one of the most difficult things and South African stories such as Beyond Forgiving deserve to be told at home and abroad to convey the true meaning of being South African and conveying that unique experience to the rest of the world.
- Letlapa Mphalele and Ginn Fourie are on a speaking tour of the UK with their film, Beyond Forgiveness. They are due to speak at the Royal Geographic Society on 27th May and in other British cities. Their visit is supported by the Wilderness Foundation (UK) and Initiatives of Change. Watch the video trailer here. For those who want to obtain a copy of the video click here.
