Apartheid did not die
October 19, 2007
The series began in South Africa where a huge rise in illegal immigration from Zimbabwe and other African states is behind an increase in racism and xenophobic violence. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy journeys from the Zimbabwean border to one of Johannesburg’s most dangerous quarters to investigate. Reporter Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Director Robin Barnwell begin their film on the Zimbabwean border with a group of Zimbabweans as they begin a long journey to Johannesburg. The South African police stop them but let them go in exchange it is claimed, for a bribe, which the people smugglers claim is routine. The Zimbabweans say they are fleeing a collapsing state, where President Mugabeâ?(TM)s policies have driven the economy into crisis and where earning enough to feed their families is impossible. However, the South Africans blame them for a crime wave and accuse them of causing unemployment. White farmers in the Limpopo border region tell Unreported World that the immigrants are perpetrating brutal farm murders and poaching their game. The team films several farmers taking the law into their own hands by rounding them up, tying them together and handing them over to the police. Itâ?(TM)s not just the farmers who believe these migrants are fuelling a crime wave. The team moves on to Johannesburg and films with police in one of the cityâ?(TM)s most dangerous areas. They accompany officers who routinely use plastic bullets to round up suspected illegal immigrants. Those they catch are sent to the Lindela detention centre. The team interview a group of Congolese men who accuse the guards of severely beating them. Another inmate laments that South Africans have forgotten the support that their â?oeAfrican brothersâ? gave them during the days of Apartheid and accuses black South Africans of being the â?oebiggest racists in the worldâ?. The team then travel to the suburb of Diepsloot where the local South African business community has written an extraordinary letter to Somalian shopkeepers asking them to leave. The shopkeepers - who say theyâ?(TM)re asylum seekers rather than illegal immigrants - fear they will suffer similar violent attacks to those suffered by other immigrant communities. A group of protestors gathers, demanding that South Africa should be for South Africans only. One woman tells Unreported World that black South Africans fought long and hard to gain their freedom that these benefits are now being stolen by illegal immigrants. The team are then allowed to film on board a train returning 400 Zimbabwean illegal immigrants back to the border. Some are so desperate to remain, that they throw themselves from the moving train during the night. Almost all say they will be back in the country within a few days. Given the ever-worsening economic environment in Zimbabwe they say they have no other choice.
Love is a strange notion, Hyerada Times, India
October 15, 2007
Hyderabad Times (Hyderabad, India) October 15th 2007
‘Love is a strange notion’
While 54 per cent women justify domestic violence in a nation-wide survey, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy investigates whether women in Afghanistan have been ‘liberated’ since the invasion by America and its allies
PRIYANKA DASGUPTA Times News Network
With 54 per cent Indian women justifying wife-beating, the scale of exploitation against women and the reasons for accepting them don’t seem to have changed much worldwide. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, the first non-American journalist to be awarded the prestigious Livingston Award, and the youngest recipient of the One World Media broadcast journalist of the year award, had interviewed Afghan men who wanted their wives veiled since they couldn’t control themselves! The maker of 12 documentaries, on subjects as varied as stalled reconstruction and the repression of women in the post-Taliban regime, women’s movement in Saudi Arabia, abortion in the Philippines and aboriginal Canadians in British Columbia, tells Hyderabad Times that she doesn’t let fear run her life. She has plans to do a documentary on the Partition generation of Indo-Pak and a film on Robert Mugabe.
Does being named among the ‘10 to Watch in 2007’ by Toronto Star add to the pressure to perform?
The accolades are a recognition of my work. They point to the fact that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. The awards inspire me to reach beyond the ordinary.
Why did you choose this profession?
When 9/11 took place, I was freelancing for newspapers (in the US and Canada) and studying politics. I realised that writing articles about the Muslim world was not enough; my readers in the US could seldom imagine the conditions, environment I was talking about. I turned to documentary film-making as a way to make Americans understand what life is like in the Muslim world. Later, I moved beyond the Muslim world to look at stories in Canada, the Philippines and South Africa.
Is the condition of Afghani widows still as pathetic as has been portrayed in Siddique Barmak’s Osama, where a girl has to be dressed up as a boy by her widowed mother to earn a livelihood?
Afghan women are worse than second-class citizens. The Constitution gives them a few rights — to divorce, to refuse marriage before the age of 16, to work and study. But, Afghan men refuse these rights to women. In 2002, Afghan women were hopeful. By 2007, many are disillusioned by how Afghanistan has fared in the last six years. Afghan women barely have the freedom to walk out of their homes. Finding a partner and falling in love is a strange notion for them. There are a few families who would allow their daughters to have love marriages. Most women who fall in love have to run away to another part of the country.
Hasn’t education changed the mindset of Afghan men?
Education has not changed the Afghan mind towards women. The ability to read and write is one thing, but does that change society?
Your documentary quotes that 9/11 has been very good for Pakistan since it gave a reason to the country to dump the Talibans…
September 11 was a wake-up call for Pakistan — did we want to become like Afghanistan or did we want to walk with our heads high into the 21st century with the rest of the civilised world? I think President Musharraf chose the latter.
Would you have got financial backing and accolades abroad if your documentaries hadn’t highlighted Pakistani extremism?
I’ve worked in over seven countries and have won awards for films I’ve done outside of Pakistan. I know where I stand. Unfortunately, people would like me to be Pakistan’s PR agent; I’m a journalist and I like to highlight the truth which, many find too hard to swallow.
hyderabadtimes@indiatimes.com
Sharmeen on the streets of Lahore
Fleeing Zimbabwe
October 4, 2007
abc.net.au
Broadcast: 10/04/2007
Reporter: Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
LEAD STORY
SERIES 16
EPISODE 29
Synopsis
This story begins on the Zimbabwe border, as a group of Zimbabweans are attempting to cross through into South Africa with hopes of reaching Johannesburg. In recent months, thousands have made the journey - some being arrested and forced back home only to return a few days later.
The immigrants say they are fleeing a collapsing state, where President Mugabe’s policies have driven the economy into crisis, and where earning enough to feed their families is impossible.
There are some South Africans who are welcoming. Bishop Paul Verryn of the Central Methodist church in Johannesburg provides shelter for hundreds of immigrants, most of them illegal, who cram into the corridors of the church to sleep every night.
But many are angry about the intrusion, and blame the immigrants for an increase in crime and unemployment. They say the illegals are responsible for thefts and violent assaults and should be treated harshly.
While white farmers in the Limpopo border region have been involved in detaining the illegal visitors, it is the black South Africans living in the townships who are most hostile.
“We did fight for this South Africa” says an one indignant township resident
“Now, it’s for us. The freedom is for us, not for illegals.“
This is ironic given that the blacks of South Africa’s townships once turned to the rest of Africa for support in their struggle for freedom.
It’s an attitude not unnoticed by their Zimbabwean neighbours.
“Black South Africans, they are the worlds number 1 racists” says a Zimbabwean detainee.