Soweto Flying Squad
SBS television
Tuesday, November 16, 8.30 p.m. (8 in Adelaide)
Reviewed by Norm Dixon
Soweto Flying Squad, a documentary by Britain's respected Channel 4, is a more sophisticated version of the many, mainly US-made, "reality" news programs that have flooded TV screens in recent years.
Through the eye of the camera, we find ourselves inside the patrol cars of the South African Police as they cruise the night streets of the sprawling Soweto "township" (a community of 3 million people crammed into an area one-tenth the size of neighbouring Johannesburg).
While the camera captures some truly startling and disturbing images of a society driven to the edge of anarchy by apartheid, there is little attempt to place South Africa's urban violence and social breakdown in context. While it is mentioned that over 50% of Sowetans are unemployed and there is no welfare and 40 years of apartheid have left "a legacy of anger and frustration" amongst blacks, that is the sum total of political analysis in the film.
The black communities' resentment and hatred of the SAP are palpable, but there is no effort to explore the SAP's long and terrible history as a key instrument of oppression of the opponents of this inhuman system. At no point are we allowed to see activities of the SAP through the eyes of the residents of Soweto.
Putting us inside the police cars and armoured vehicles, pushes us to see Soweto and its problems from the young cops' point of view. We come across the random victims of street crime and violence. We are forced to withdraw with the cops when angry residents begin to gather and become threatening. The black population are seen through car windows and wire mesh as menacing crowds, confused victims of unexplained violence or aggressive perpetrators of crime.
The members of the flying squads — predominantly white, single and in their early 20s — explain their feelings and motives, their "love" of their country and their desire to "help" the "people', their seemingly genuine confusion over the resentment shown towards them by the people of Soweto.
Through these less than subtle devices, the film makers attempt to evoke sympathy, perhaps even admiration, for these young men just doing a difficult job against enormous odds. The grim reality of their tasks, it is implied, excuses lapses of legal procedure and respect for rights. Needless to say, the police filmed are on their best behaviour.
To put it mildly, this program is a whitewash of the brutal role of the SAP in upholding apartheid in the past, and of its widely acknowledged role in attacks on township residents by those opposed to fundamental change of the apartheid system. To the uninformed, it is all the more insidious because it is genuinely gripping to watch.
Despite these massive flaws, there are some insights to be gleaned by those more knowledgeable of the real situation in South Africa. The attitudes of the white cops are fundamentally hostile to any concept of community policing.
There is a blatant mind set of "us" versus "them". All blacks are suspects, all are dangerous. The job, the young cops agree, is "fun" and "exciting". Shooting dead suspected car thieves or robbers is just part of the job.
What becomes most obvious is that components of the SAP like the flying squads cannot simply be reformed or restructured. They must be replaced root and branch by a police service, drawn from, and dedicated to, the community itself. As one township resident, angry and shocked to find his friend has been shot dead by the police, promises the cocky officers: "In the end, we're the ones who'll win. I'm positive ... Eventually, we will reply."