Abstract
This article examines correspondence in the archives of the South African National Parks relating to a television film, “All Africa within us”, that Sir Laurens van der Post made for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in various South African nature reserves in 1974. The correspondence reveals that The South African Department of Information, supported by Dr Piet Koornhof, who was friendly with Van der Post, helped arrange the visit, expecting that Van der Post would provide favourable coverage of South African conservation efforts and thus, indirectly, of the National Party. The article reveals the complex interplay of motives between the Parks Board, Van der Post, the Department of Information and the BBC. It shows that the Kruger Park authorities were suspicious of filmmakers and wished to control the products by, for example, asking for scripts in advance. Van der Post’s letters and later commentary by his producer suggest that he changed his emphasis and focus considerably from the outset to the final production. The most fruitful approach to such productions may be in Actor-Network theory which tries to show the importance of different agents in controlling, or failing to control, a cultural product. Attempts to see conservation films as simple propaganda or political statement, the article argues, are misplaced and simplify the complexities.
Highlights
Critics of conservation in Southern Africa and more generally see it as a colonial imposition that disregards the rights of indigenous people and creates a myth of unpeopled landscapes.[1]
Correspondence in the South African National Parks (SANParks) archives, both in their Groenkloof headquarters in Pretoria and in the Kruger Park archives in Skukuza, reveals that the Department of Information, the controversial body that sought aggressively to influence internal and external coverage of South Africa, saw South Africa’s conservation record as something that could be used to improve the image of the country abroad.[3]
The most interesting case study involves a television programme made for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) by Laurens van der Post, the South African novelist, travel writer and filmmaker who had moved from South Africa to England
Summary
Critics of conservation in Southern Africa and more generally see it as a colonial imposition that disregards the rights of indigenous people and creates a myth of unpeopled landscapes.[1]. The previously unexamined correspondence related to his filming in South Africa throws an interesting light onto Van der Post’s political stance in the 1970s, a time in which he was involved in various political initiatives involving South Africa and its relationships with Britain It shows how the National Party was trying to modernise itself and shed the image of racial baasskap [literally boss-hood but generally meaning white racial domination] and, how the Department of Information and the Department of Foreign Affairs tried to shape international views of South Africa.[4]. Religious identity and anti-colonial struggle could be adapted to a new defence of white power
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