Don Edkins: Why Democracy
Its been an interesting weekend, politically speaking, in South Africa. I had been away travelling for a week and came back on Saturday to find out that the President of South Africa – Thabo Mbeki – had been deposed. He had been ‘asked’ by the ANC to resign. He did…
In a democracy leaders come and go. And thats healthy. Especially in Africa where many leaders hang on to their power as long as they can (Mugabe …). What will be very good for the country is getting rid of some of the Cabinet ministers who have been running disastrous policies in Mbeki’s government – such as the Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, whose stance on HIV and AIDS has been an absolute disaster for the country. But there is a lot of uncertainty about the process. And with recent violent xenophobic attacks against foreign Africans living in South Africa, there is a lot of anger and hate under the surface which was taken out on some of the almost 4 million foreigners from Africa, the majority having fled the Zimbabwe meltdown…
The Steps documentary film project Why Democracy? was made to challenge the practise and understanding of democracy around the world. We are currently making a five-language DVD edition for educational distribution across Africa. Documentary film is a powerful tool to help understand and debate different issues, and this collection is a valuable resource for that. Democracy is part of the syllabus for the final years of high school in South Africa, and we are negotiating to make the films available in every school in the country. There is a lot to learn.
This shortened text by producer Don Edkins, one of the two masterminds behind the Steps for the Future film series, previously written about on this blog, is to be found in its full length on
