(I Ain't Gonna Play) Sun City

I was looking for a video for the haunting song "Silver and Gold" - by Bono or by U2, I don't remember - from the 1985 album Artists United Against Apartheid. I never found the video, which probably doesn't exist, but I did find an audio-only version of the song from U2's Rattle and Hum eventually found an audio-only version (with a fan-made slideshow) here. I also came across the main song from the A.U.A.A. album, "Sun City":



I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that most people would need to hit some history books to understand what this video is all about. In a nutshell: "Apartheid" was the official policy of racial separation and repression in South Africa in the 20th century, designed to keep the dominant white ("Afrikaner") minority in control of every aspect of society. It was brutal and evil, and most of the rest of the world was content to look the other way. A resort called Sun City was built in the "independent homeland" (or "bantustan") of Bophuthatswana - a whites-only luxury facility in the midst of a relocation camp for blacks. It imported entertainers from all over the world. This song was a statement by both major and minor artists preemptively refusing to accept any offer to play Sun City.

The image at 3:52 - 4:05 still gives me goosebumps - and remember, this was all done using the technology available in 1985. Check out the bearded fellow featured from 4:49 - 5:10, sporting a look I don't remember him ever having before or since.

For some (admittedly questionable) reading on these subjects, check out these Wikipedia entries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artists_United_Against_Apartheid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_City_(album)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_City,_North_West
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid

For a list of artists who appeared on this album, see here:
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Artists+United+Against+Apartheid

And for an annotated version of this video, check out the Pop-Up Video version here.

Apartheid ended, and South Africa is a different place. Is it a better place? It depends who you ask, I suppose. Conditions have definitely worsened for some, improved for others. The end of Apartheid was not the end of South Africa's troubles, any more than the breakup of the Soviet Union was the end of trouble in Eastern Europe. Much of Africa is still a mess by any standard - the goings-on in Rwanda and Zaire (and its successors) and Zimbabwe and elsewhere overshadow the evils of Apartheid in terms of their effects on the lives (and deaths) of the people of those nations.

The world is a work in progress. This song is now a testament to a moment in time when a group of people refused to "shut up and sing" and instead used their talents to try to make the world aware of a situation it had long chosen to ignore.


Footnote: The man who built Sun City later built an Indian casino resort in Connecticut whose name bears tribute to his past achievement. It is called "Mohegan Sun." A few years ago, the tribe that runs that casino bought the horse racetrack a few miles from here called Pocono Downs and converted it into Pennsylvania's first casino - also called Mohegan Sun. So a second cousin to Sun City exists practically in my back yard!