By Josephine Trilling
On the morning of March 29, 1988, South African anti-apartheid activist Dulcie September stepped out of an elevator on the fourth floor at 28 Rue des Petites Écuries in Paris, only to be gunned down by an anonymous stranger holding a .22 pistol.
Immediately after her assassination, the French public took to the streets in protest, outraged that the South African Apartheid government would dare assassinate someone on their soil. But in the chaotic frenzy, no one stopped to question the direction their fingers were pointed. The French people refused to acknowledge September could have been shot, in cold blood, by a French citizen, which hindered efforts to find who killed her, according to a film released last year.
South African anti-apartheid activist Dulcie September, subject of the documentary film Murder in Paris, screened by the Carsey-Wolf Center earlier this month.
South African film director Enver Samuel produced a documentary on the case, Murder in Paris: The Assassination of Dulcie September, which was screened this month by the Carsey-Wolf Center. In a discussion afterward, a panel of UCSB professors, Jean Beaman of Sociology, Ricado Jacobs of Global Studies, and visiting NYU scholar Leonard Cortana, focused on sexism as a factor that prevented September from receiving proper police protection and due justice after her murder.
The filmmakers found that French arms companies, threatened by her investigation into their illegal business with South Africa, likely organized the murder of Dulcie September. But the French police never solved the case, and her murderers were never prosecuted.
The film shows investigative journalist and former Dutch anti-apartheid activist Evelyn Goenink realizing she had been blinded by the French public’s certainty that an African hit squad had done the deed. She ultimately concludes that South Africa had far too much to lose by assassinating a high-ranking ANC member on foreign soil.
Groenik reveals the much more plausible explanation that September was killed by French arms companies, citing the their undeniable motivation, September’s phone being tapped, and suspicious meetings held right before her death.
Jean Beaman (Sociology, UCSB) , Leonard Cortana (Cinema Studies, NYU-Tisch), and Ricado Jacobs (Global Studies, UCSB) discussing Murder in Paris during a Carsey-Wolf Center event at the Pollock Theater.
“If September had stumbled across the network of money, weapons, and intelligence supporting the apartheid regime at the time, there’s no doubt she would have been an obstacle to some of the most powerful players,” said Hennie Van Vuuren, author of Apartheid, Guns and Money: A Tale of Profit. “An obstacle not only because she could have prevented future business, but in exposing the [arms] networks it would have made those players vulnerable.”
More than 100 French arms companies were illegally doing business with the Apartheid government in South Africa, he said.
The documentary closed on the hopeful note that France’s current president, Emanuel, Macron said he would “look into” her case, nearly 30 years later.
In the post-film discussion, NYU’s Leonard Cortana said September was not only ignored by French police but silenced by her own people when they dismissed her suspicions about being followed. He called both French and ANC authority's responses to her concerns “belittling” and “sexist.” In the film, former ANC director Aziz Pahad admitted calling September a drama queen, and French police, who denied her protective servieces, called her hysterical.
Cortana said September was a wide-open target. “I could never believe that the French intelligence had no idea she would be killed,” he said, adding that the ANC activist understood the danger she was putting herself in but kept going. “Something to keep in mind; she was murdered because she was married to the cause.”
Still, Cortana warned against reducing her story to that of a heroic woman who sacrificed herself for the anti-Apartheid movement. “We tend to elevate and glorify because we see this as a way to celebrate a victory,” he said. “But making it more complex is really how to teach the next generation—not simplifying.”
UCSB’s Ricado Jacobs criticized the ANC, wondering out loud why in more than 24 years it hasn’t pushed for further investigation of September’s murder.
Born and raised in South Africa, Jacobs said that female activists are not normally well known. “Not only in South Africa but all over the continent, it is difficult to think about the women protagonists in the liberation movement,” he said, noting that the documentary provokes a larger discussion about female activists, and how they are remembered.
Josephine Trilling is a second year UC Santa Barbara student majoring in Global Studies and Political Science. She wrote this article for her Writing Program course Digital Journalism.