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![A Story on true Solidarity (And A Quick Guide to Great Documentary Filmmaking)
It’s too easy to feel fatigued in (and of) the world nowadays. So much has happened within the
last 5 years – and even in just 2025 – that has overwhelmed many to the point of zombieism (if
such a word existed). Everybody is at some point either stuck in a political echo chamber
(whether NDC-NPP, Left-Right, Labour-Conservative) or declaring themselves totally
apolitical.
So, it was refreshing for me to receive an invitation out of the blue to the Accra Mall Silverbird
premiere of a docu-thriller produced by a mix of English and Afro-English filmmakers about a
clandestine anti-apartheid operation in 1970s South Africa led by a formidable black South
African man but carried out by white, British, working-class youth 👀. Because to me, the truth
is usually found at intersections (and yes, truly stranger than fiction). Allow me to tell you a bit
about the London Recruits.
The film, Comrade Tambo’s London Recruits (2024), written and directed by Welsh director/
producer, Gordon Main, follows Oliver Tambo, then President-General of the African National
Congress (ANC), who initiates a secret plan while in exile [and Mandela was in jail], to send
young, white freedom fighter, Ronnie Kasrils to London. From eight thousand miles away,
Ronnie is tasked with convincing the apartheid authorities and the oppressed population that
hope lives on, and that the ANC units are still operating right across South Africa. With almost
no money, Ronnie and a small cell of fellow exiles turn to the ordinary young people of London
for help. So begins a series of ever more daring undercover missions that sends shock waves
through the regime. A potent mix of never-before-seen archive footage, action-packed drama
and candid testimony from the recruits, eyewitnesses and secret police – London Recruits is a
compelling journey into the heart of apartheid South Africa.
A compelling journey indeed, showing us life and activism in the gritty streets, homes and
offices of 1970s London, Johannesburg, Durban and others. So compelling that it led me to do
some research on the characters afterwards and learn that “When Tambo first began the work
of lobbying for international recognition, almost the only head of government prepared to give
him the time of day was Kwame Nkrumah, in Ghana.” (The Independent, 2007). Wow, I
thought, happy to learn of yet another instance of pan-African solidarity led by the great
Kwame Nkrumah (His excellency, our 1st president). But before I get ahead of myself to my
post-cinema insights, I want to tell you about the excellent documentary filmmaking on this
movie.
Let’s start from the never-before-seen archive footage. In the Q&A session after the screening,
hosted by one of the producers, Colin Charles (a legend in the Ghanaian creative industry), he
answered a question about how the film had such authentic looking scenes of everyday life in
SA and the UK – they had sourced the footage by openly asking on social media for any home
videos of those times that netizens had and didn’t mind sharing. And the Internet came
through!
For the action-packed drama, I think they did a brilliant job conveying the danger the young
activists faced at every point of their operation, with the varied pacing, stylish edits, multicharacter narration, the soul-stirring music… The music!! That uplifting, Sarafina-style folk
singing that many oppressed peoples seem to come endowed with…Then there’s the candid testimony, genuinely given by the recruits, eyewitnesses and secret
police, a mix of actors and the actual persons involved, an execution I remarked to my friend at
the cinema was a masterclass in casting – the younger versions of the characters truly looked
like the actual personalities, and all the actors deserve praise for their embodiment of the
characters, most with few words but more emotion. They certainly had big shoes to fill, those
of iconic freedom fighters like South African journalist Joyce Sikhakhane-Rankin, who shared a
bit of her spirited story alongside the portrayal…
Themes explored included the injustice of Apartheid and Oppression, the need for Solidarity,
and the power of Hope and Bravery, all at the time when Mandela was in prison and it seemed
all hope for liberation was lost… The daring “recruitment” of British citizens by African freedom
fighters for the cause of African liberation itself offers a testament to African ingenuity and
strategic thinking.
If I were to find any flaw in the film, I would incidentally have to point out that it’s a doubleedged sword – on the one hand, the gritty 1 hour 45 minute documentary thriller was succinct,
straight to the point, with little appetite for hors d’oeuvres in today’s era of 3-min attention
spans; on the other hand, this very conciseness, I feel, could have been sacrificed for an extra
30-45mins of even richer storytelling. The perspectives and attitudes of the elites of the time,
for instance (in both SA and the UK), is one of the few additional insights I’d have liked to gain.
Such context would provide a deeper education for new and younger audiences like myself…
I loved however this concept (or observation) that Colin Charles shared, that the movie signals
“there are 2 Britains…,” to which an attendee echoed, “there are also 2 Ghanas, and 2
Nigerias…”; 2 South Africas, 2 Cote d’Ivoires, 2 Americas, etc., a crisp commentary on the
dichotomy between the classes in probably every nation on earth (it indeed signaled that, as it
highlighted the warm, helpful attitudes of the young, working-class whites without showing the
cold ones of their elites, hence my little recommendation above).
I will conclude with my takeaways from this important piece of edutainment. The London
Recruits were white – the very race that was oppressing the South Africans in their homeland.
The existence of this network (and several others like it around the world) is proof that truth is
not just black and white; sometimes, the truth is grey, and increasingly more nuanced…
The main import of the film though, is that at the end, after the London recruits’ support of the
black fight – their contributing spark that reignited the passion to keep fighting – it was the
black people themselves that achieved independence. With Nelson Mandela at the helm,
black South Africa liberated herself.
The post-Apartheid and post-Colonial fight yet remains to be won (and hopefully for good), but
it’s refreshing to know that we have achieved monumental victories before, and that we have
everything necessary to think and act outside the box in uncertain times.
Comrade Tambo’s London Recruits comes at a very auspicious time. Amid intense global
turmoil, we are forced to ponder, can we return to that kind of solidarity in today’s world of
“the other”? My conviction is that if young white workers in Britain could empathize and work
with the African people against their white oppressors at the height of Apartheid, then we can
definitely do it again.
– Written by Zara Abbey, Creative Director, ZNMA CommunicationsWriter, Zara Abbey, with film producer, Colin Charles, at Accra Silverbird Cinema premiere of
Comrade Tambo’s London Recruits](https://www.citinewsroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-20-042534-350x250.png)
A story on true solidarity and a quick guide to great documentary filmmaking
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