ON November 21 a varied group of politics and culture fans, some familiar with the story of the London Recruits, some unfamiliar, and some of them recruits themselves, all got together to celebrate the latest edition of director and producer Gordon Main’s documentary, Comrade Tambo’s London Recruits, screened in association with Action for South Africa (ACTSA) at the Ritzy Picturehouse in Brixton. 

Before the screening Main, who founded the production company Barefoot Rascals, made a short speech, during which he made the first, but not the last, comparison of the South African apartheid to the apartheid and genocide in Palestine. He said: “We are in a battle for the soul of the world right now, and the other side is better organised.”

The Q&A panel was made up of Gordon Main; chairing the conversation was artist and human rights activist Zita Holbourne; South African High Commissioner to the UK and former Head of Mission for the African National Congress in Mozambique, Cuba and Zimbabwe, Kingsley Mamabolo; law and politics student at the University of Kent and former secretary-general of the Zimbabwe National Students Union Makomborero Haruzivishe; creative producer at Barefoot Rascals and one of the film’s producers, Colin Charles; and finally Sean Hosey, one of the London recruits whose awe-inspiring story featured in the documentary.

It was only at the Q&A, after the screening of the lively, respectful, and timely documentary, that the number of recruits in the audience was revealed. Over a dozen people stood up and revealed themselves to be some of the bright, principled faces that had just been featured on the screen. Though most of the London recruits in the audience were not in the film due to time constraints, the audience supplied their due praise. 

Among these recruits in the audience was Ronnie Kasrils, the London recruit who wrote the foreword to Ken Keable’s original account of the London recruits in The London Recruits: The Secret War Against Apartheid (Merlin Press, 2021).

This was research which had never been done before and without which the documentary would never have been made, according to the film-makers and recruits alike. Kasrils also wrote the NEU backed London Recruits Educational Resource and the How to Master Secret Work pamphlet (Manifesto Press, £15).

The film-makers, Gordon Main and Colin Charles, stressed that this is a people’s release, and that the film-makers are travelling the UK and Africa presenting their documentary on their own terms, because “cinema is part of the machine.”

When Hosey was asked how young people can confront the apartheid in Palestine with the same organisation and fervour the London recruits did, he answered that that is why it’s important to tell and retell their story, “and from that story, the young people will know what to do.”

Commissioner Mamabolo said of the Palestinians’ struggle in the face of their apartheid state: “One day indeed, they will go back to their home, just as we did.” South African members of the audience involved in other ways in the anti-apartheid fight spoke about how important it is for young South Africans not to take what they have for granted, especially when apartheid is still in place in other societies.

Main said that he thought of the film as a love story: a love story between white people in Britain and black people in South Africa. In the same vein, the commissioner stressed multiple times that the struggle against South Africa’s apartheid was waged by all people who held the same principles as the London recruits, black and white. 

Commissioner Mamabolo emphasised that the recruits “were not just so in love with South Africa, they were in love with the values that we hold together: with human rights.”

For more information see: londonrecruits.com