Have You Heard from Johannesburg

A monumental documentary series about the global anti-apartheid movement and a must-see for anyone who thinks they already know it all. Eight hours and thirty minutes of uncompromising enlightenment, peppered with original footage missing even from the Apartheid Museum - unique, insightful, and shocking.. This is not a dry history lesson, but rather a gripping panorama of the worldwide resistance against a system that for decades elevated racist perversion to state doctrine. Johannesburg becomes a symbol here: from the villa with pool to the corrugated iron shack - a cityscape could hardly be more grotesque. The insights are sometimes so absurd that the laughter catches in your throat. The only criticism: some scenes are repetitive - but honestly, given the audacity of the apartheid government, you might as well take a second look. Educating, outraging but never caring.

I teach ethics at the University of North Dakota and this series by Connie Field is exceptional. I use two episodes, "The Road to Resistance" and "From Selma to Soweto". When the course begins my students generally know very little about apartheid. A few have seen movies like "invictus" but they still don't understand how violent and dehumanizing apartheid was. I was fortunate enough to visit South Africa several years ago and learn first hand what happened there. I have been able to bring that experience into the classroom also.

Field's work is well researched and contains a lot of truths that many Americans would rather not hear about.

We could apply the "Truth and Reconciliation" approach to some of our own problems - especially the Native American issues which remain unresolved.