Mapantsula "National Madness" – Aeroplanes "Potential Mutiny" – Stan James "Numbered Again" – The Facts "Shot Down in the Streets" – Cherry Faced Lurchers "Don't Dance" – Kalahari Surfers "Whitey" – The Softies "Don't Believe" – In Simple English "Too Much Resistance" – Nude Red "Spaces Tell Stories" – Roger Lucey "Suburban Hum" – Jennifer Ferguson Popular culture In Damon Galgut's novel The Promise a character does not return to the army after being given special leave to attend his mother's funeral. In the novel Getting Hold of a Gun is Easy the End Conscription Campaign is referred to as the Campaign Against Conscription (CAC). The protagonist is a member of the CAC who attends the sentencing of a Jewish Conscientious Objector based on David Bruce who received a sentence of six years in prison. He escapes the country to live in Botswana after graduating. 'The Rising Tide, a song by the popular progressive band Bright Blue was composed in honour of Bruce and the lyrics deal with his stand against conscription into the apartheid military. Counter-operations against the ECC Many ECC members were subject to persecution. During 1986, 98 members were detained, and others subjected to systematic harassment and intimidation. Meetings, publications and activities of the organisation were banned. Disinformation, death threats, fire-bombings, assaults, break-ins, and anonymous counter-propaganda against the organisation was commonplace. Evidence in a Cape Town court in 1988 revealed that the South African Defence Force had been running a disinformation campaign against the ECC. Political and military figures adopted varying and sometimes contradictory methods and messages to try to contain the threat of conscientious objection. National Party politicians characterised ECC activists as naive, malevolent in intent, in league with 'communist revolutionaries' and also as sexually deviant (i.e. homosexual) and cowardly. However, there is evidence that sentencing magistrates and even state prosecutors came to admire objectors for their stand. Psychiatric oppression and the ECC In order to get out of forced conscription into the South African Defence Force, many conscripts allowed themselves to be labeled as mentally ill, sick, or incapable of carrying a weapon. The price was incarceration in one of South Africa's psychiatric facilities. Instances of psychiatric abuse of conscripts who refused national service have also been recorded. The cases of conscripts who ended up in mental hospitals are in the process of being documented by groups such as MindFreedom International. See also Conscription in