These Are South Africans (1950s)

[Music] [Music] the time is January of any year the place is the City of Cape Town in the complex country of South Africa the occasion is the opening of parliament the people are of course South Africans no matter what their occupation their looks their racial back their color the self-governing country known as the union of South Africa is four provinces which came together in legislative unity in 1910 the general principles of British democratic government form the basis on which South Africa is governed although the country is completely independent Her Majesty the queen is represented here by a governor general who officiates at the opening of parliament he is himself a South African the parade of uniforms is the Prelude to the opening ceremony the beginning of a new year in South [Music] Africa even a few minutes in South Africa will be enough to inform the visitor that the country has at least two of almost everything there are two major race groups white and non-white there are two official languages two national anthems and two capitals the government offices are Petoria but Parliament meets here in Cape [Music] Town the parade draws to a climax as his Excellency Dr EG Jensen the governor general of South Africa arrives at the houses of Parliament and the formal opening is due to [Music] begin all this uniformed formality is only symbolic of the reality the reality being the government and the government is nothing without something to govern the people and their country but who are these South Africans and what are they like under this surface of pageantry how do they live and what sort of country is this South Africa centuries ago Portuguese Navigators set their course through unknown Seas to reach the rich spices of India on their way they rounded the southernmost tip of Africa and called it the Cape of storms the resourceful Dutch East India men who followed found it to be a convenient halfway house to India and made a permanent settlement at the cape in the passing of centuries the rocky coasts and turbulent Waters of the cape lost the Terrors they had held for seamen and became the pleasure grounds of a new nation South Africans descendants mainly of the first men from Holland and the settlers who followed them from France and England the Cape of storms was tamed and became the Cape of Good Hope its people treat the sea with a casualness that the Pioneers would have shuddered to think [Music] of [Music] w but in spite of the fact that the present day South Africans have found the cape to be a holiday makers Paradise the old shipping Traditions have not been forgotten the square riggers are a part of history now cargo ships and steel Men of War and great ocean taken their place plowing their way through the same Seas to the same port but the Seas seem more friendly and the months of voyaging have dwindled down to days the halfway house itself has changed mightily it has become a destination not just a port of call oldtime Sailors could only look forward to being buffeted by Angry waves at the Cape of storms and met by suspicious hoton tots now there are dock hands to welcome them and ships from All Nations lie safe in the waters of table Bay protected by the friendly Mountain [Music] Yan Von rebec was appointed by the Dutch East India Company in 1652 to be their first governor at the cape it was his job to make of the cape a postal station and a vegetable garden his followers were not all willing to help it was the sentiment of some that they'd rather be hanged than live in this Savage country but there were others more stoic and by the time Fon RC left the settlement was well on its way to becoming a living City the City of Cape Town as it is today was made great not only by Dutch Governors but by seamen of various Nations British settlers and French hugenots and their descendants and all those who are now called South [Music] Africans the city has grown over the slopes of the mountains that rise out of the sea the sea is inevitably the center of existence for many of those who live close to it it goes without saying that great companies have capitalized on this readymade wealth and that big Industries have drawn from it but to anyone who knows and loves the The Cape the independent Cape fisherman is an integral part of it his background is a part of it too these men are mostly malaise they came to the cape in the late 17th and early 18th century mostly as political Exiles fishing has always been one of their Main Stays they were fishermen in their own countries and continu to practice their profession at the cape and pass it on to their children [Music] [Music] in all the world there is perhaps no City so beautifully situated as Cape Town 300 years ago Sir Francis Drake said this cape is a most stately thing and the fairest Cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth his opinion has been enthusiastically endorsed by generations of South Africans who concede nothing to other capes this is the cape but there is more to any country than rap cidies on its scenery in the case of the Cape there's a lot more to be seen a lot of people still to meet going about their business pretty much the same as they do anywhere else in the world or sometimes doing the same thing in a slightly different way like driving on the wrong side of the road [Music] legally they're going sightseeing he's coming home from [Music] church anything less like the popular conception of darkest Africa can hardly Be Imagined it could be Bordeaux to look at or Germany's Rin land but it's not it's the dren stain Valley in the cape with the hugenots victims long ago of religious persecution there came to South Africa men who knew all the ancient secrets of the French Vineyards they proceeded to show the inhabitants how to make good wine they left Vineyards climbing through the Hills and Valleys they grew delicious grapes for eating and produced a wine unsurpassed even by their for former [Music] countrymen a Vineyard is the sort of place that people like to visit it's not like a couple of South Africa's other main attractions diamond mines and gold mines where they don't give away any samples here they do M looks good doesn't it after the eating grapes have been gathered the bunches are trimmed of the less desirable fruit and made ready for packing most of the men and women employed in the cape's oldest industry are colored that is they are of mixed European and Native origin to a large extent they form the working class of whatever District they live in grapes for wine ripen in January and the Vintage usually begins in February in the old days the farm laborers danced on the grapes with bare feet singing Old Cape songs as they trod but those days have gone forever and the grapes go into impersonal but hygienic slicing machines the product then goes into cool sellers where the wine matures experienced European drinkers as far back as the 18th century expressed approval of the cape vintage so apparently do the bellian cherubs as they pour wine about with delightful abandoned his enviable job is to test the quality of the final product it may be cherry or Port Hawk burgundy brandy or a sparkling wine but it will be good and she looking on is well known to numbers of South Africans as the lady on the wine [Music] bottle farmers are among the nation's most important people Farms run large in the union and lovely too thousands of Acres of wheat gleaming warm and golden against the distant blue mountains along with industry and Mining agriculture is one of the three leading sources of national income and therefore of national Prosperity custom dies hard among some people even though the most up-to-date farm equipment is available some Farmers still use teams of oxen and some use mules instead of tractors this particular Farm boasts a prize winning mule team that the owner wouldn't trade in for the finest tractor in the [Music] world [Music] the first plow shares to be seen in this country appeared in about 1658 the settlement's first blacksmith was making them from steel sent from Holland the blacksmiths have long been out of business most of the largest articles of farm equipment now used in South Africa are likely to be made in the United States and Canada nearly all the internationally known compan iies have sales offices in the union very often they have their products on view at local agricultural [Music] shows these agricultural shows are a mixture of business and pleasure equipment will be critically inspected and cattle will be bought and sold but there are also races to be run and prizes to win between events the farmers get together to compare crops and discuss the price of beef the Pioneer colonists needed a particularly Hardy type of cattle to withstand long TS and to be used as draft animals in the course of time there was created a distinct breed which came to be known as the africander as the need for pulling power decreased The Strain improved and the beef was found to be well worth fattening oh me looks as if he's destined to go to work or maybe a fate even [Music] worse [Music] business over for the day and it's back to the [Music] races at the time of the discovery of the cape the horse family was represented only by a species of wild ass in the zebra they were not found to be very amable to training so horses were imported first from java then Persia the americ and finally from England most of the horses now in use in South Africa are saddlers Arabs cides percherons and all kinds of high-priced fast moving thorough [Music] breads also on show hoping for a blue ribbon to chew are these Ridgeback puppies descendants of an old German canine line they were uced into the country by German settlers in Southwest [Music] Africa note the very pronounced Ridge down the [Music] backs you've just seen a horse show at parce a little town with a population of just about 6 and a half thousand this is Johannesburg whose people number more than 3/4 of a million but the show is pretty much the same the trophies are a little fancier the Riders look as though they belong on London's rotten row but the accent is still on horses [Music] a show of this sort in South Africa's biggest City offers a perfect opportunity for advertising one of the commercial is an appeal to the South African tourist to find out a bit more about his own land and its people to see the native Africans or B to in their own tribal settings it's a vast and sprawling country and there are some facets of it of which South Africans themselves know very [Music] little and also represented are things that South Africans have become accustomed to through constant [Music] use throughout the greater part of the Year South Africans expect to enjoy an outdoor life the temperate climate makes Recreation an unavoidable of existence and not just something saved for vacations fishing is an Ever popular sport but the angler may be discouraged to learn that the largest trout ever caught in the union was killed by a native with a club and then they're swimming practically the national Pastime but by plane some people do it that way Savi in the Eastern transval is peculiarly South African think of hundreds of square miles of native territory with maybe a lion or two prowling about and in the middle of it [Music] this there are scores of more conventional Resorts all along the coastline the warm Waters of the Indian Ocean flow into false Bay east of Cape Town Kipling mentions this place talks of the White Sands of mberg being spun before the Gale it's the custom among some South Africans to talk somewhat disparagingly of mberg actually the beach is one of the finest in the world it detractors complain that it's always so crowded and there's some truth to this claim in Midsummer around about Christmas time you can't see the beach for the [Music] people cap tonians are a very fortunate people they're almost surrounded by beaches and none of these are crowded in fact there's so much Sea and Sand that people take them as a matter of course and practically live on the beach if they couldn't go down for a swim after a hard day at school or office they'd feel themselves very ill [Music] used the endless miles of beaches help to make things easy for mothers too they keep their children romping in and out of the Waves all day and take them home worn out and they hope ready for bed actually whoever swims in these Waters has to be a fairly hearty Soul because no matter what the Chamber of Commerce says the water on this side of the peninsula the Atlantic side is cold [Music] [Music] while the rest of the nation is spting on the beach or attending to various jobs its young people are undergoing the agonies of learning and planning to be the country's future doctors teachers and politicians they have a lovely enough setting for all this metal effort but it's examination time at the University of Cape Town and the atmosphere is slightly strained as miss the pale smile of the student who has left himself too much last minute cramming the anxious post-mortems of those who hope they finished but suspect that they might have to come back back and The Confident satisfaction of those who know that they're [Music] safe this then is South Africa some of it beautiful almost Beyond description some of it hot dry and Dusty and it's Rich Farmland spreading like the plains of Nevada or the wheat fields of Kansas mountains tall and Majestic and cities that try to top them industries that have grown from very small beginnings and the people who call this country their own [Music] they are a contrasting group of people a complex group of different races and background even different cultures and civilizations and the contrasts have bred difficulties but whatever their differences they are united by one thing at least this is is their country these are all South Africans l