Where is the Justice? - Fools (1997)

The 1997 film Fools undeniably occupies an important place in the South African film canon as the first post-apartheid South African film to be directed by a black director, Ramadan Suleman. Despite the setting of the late 1980s, it seems to look thematically at the problems of the past that remain ongoing in post-apartheid South African society, in particular rape.

Poster for Fools (1997)

Mimi, and her fellow South African women and girls, suffered not only not only race based violence, but also gender based violence as a result the systemic oppression of the apartheid system. Audrey McCluskey writes in her book, The Devil You Dance With: Film Culture in the New South Africa, that Fools is a film that seems to “highlight the political marginality of black women without satisfactorily dealing with it.” This is, I think, due to a lack of acknowledgement of the multifaceted and intersectional nature of the oppression faced by black women under the apartheid system, and the ways in which the violence of that oppression continues to play out in a post-apartheid society. It focuses less on the horror and ongoing trauma of Mimi’s rape and the willingness of her mother and the elders (representing society more widely) to overlook it, but instead on the redemption of her rapist, Zamani.

Still from Fools (1997) showing the Elders

The only person who is unwilling to overlook what happened to Mimi is her older sister, who, like Mimi, has very little power to change things. At one point she says, “shame doesn’t mean a thing” and I think this cuts to the core of the issue, because shame, whether in the sense of personal guilt or of public scorn, is not the same as justice. Zamani, through his shame, receives redemption but Mimi, who did no wrong, does not receive the justice she rightly deserves. That which was done to her cannot be undone, and the childhood innocence, bodily autonomy and sense of personal safety that was violently taken from her, by a teacher no less in what should be considered an unforgiveable abuse of power, cannot be restored through mere shame. All those in society who ought to protect her and to fight for her right to justice, fail. And if we look at this as a reflection upon post-apartheid South African society, and the powers of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to achieve justice for victims, it seems to me to be really quite damning. 

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1996

Rory Bester, in his review from the New York African film festival, writes that “[w]hile the narrative raises questions concerning the complicity and culpability of the elders (and, by implication, the community) in Zamani’s actions, it by no means comes anywhere close to capturing the brutality of the culture of silence surrounding rape, a reticence that has for so long gripped South Africa’s townships.” Through the focus on Zamani there is, instead of a challenge to, a perpetuation of Mimi’s marginalisation and therefore of black women and their experiences during and emerging from apartheid. There is no acknowledgement of the intersectionality of the dual oppression they face being both black and female. This film, more so in its omissions than anything else, highlights the lack of justice, not only on a personal level but on a transitional one, there is for black South African women as the society emerges from apartheid. The violence they face, and their silencing and marginalisation, is not something of the past, but something that remains ongoing. Fools is a film that gets very close to the acknowledgement of this reality, but ultimately falls a little short ending up almost complicit in the very issue it seems to want to address.