since the launch of al-jazeera english back in two thousand and six we've built up a library of award winning documentary s. and here on rewind we've been delving into the vault to pull out some of the best of them today we're going back to two thousand and seven to

a poor south african neighborhood just outside cape town when using honor enter edition come together in an unusual annual competition. in recent years south africa has seen huge political upheaval and corruption scandals and cape town south africa second largest city has been feeling the impact of climate change and struggling with drastic water shortages a decade ago south africa seemed to be moving towards a more inclusive post apartheid world yet in the poorest suburbs of cape town local communities still maintain their distinctive identities based in the cape flats the muslim community holds an annual singing competition for the sale of affairs jovi and in two thousand and seven the witness series was there to film this contest which sheds a unique light on the diversity and inequalities of modern soph africa here

is the silva phase. this is the story of a man with a dream but it plays out on the dark side. till nine hundred sixty five or thereabouts most of the town's muslims lived in the city proper this book of accounts a language they helped create and many had roots that went back centuries but when the party derived they were forced to move our church to the parent's rights outside the city it's a tough world too little money too many drugs and one of the highest murder rates on the planet but not as we shall see the place of hopelessness. this is a place called. it's in the middle of the cape flats and i'm staying here for the past thirty years everybody knows and it goes with that because of one thing only

because of the use of. but i could go on but that's basically the idea in two thousand and five and two friends decided to enter and try to win the annual capital a quiet competition an extravaganza that involves fifty rival teams to custom changes five different song forms and massive amounts of money it was an insanely optimistic move considering the competition they were facing. this is haji bugs israel name is mohammed same benjamin but he owns several businesses and visits mecca regularly so budget bucks it is. the thing that. sick. sick sick sick sick sick sick. he calls his team the starlights and as far as he's concerned nobody can touch them

yes there's a lot that doesn't like me in the come but he said he quoth because both from the for whom it is knows a good life only first place. was . such a box has been organizing choirs since he made his first fortune his funds are inexhaustible his dominance of type with a culture almost complete so it was a david and goliath situation really an underdog versus the establishment a house painter versus harvey books. well you interest for us in the five in school. music but i'm a person that can read something very quickly this new in music is good. but always knew that they had seven thousand in me that they could actually do which in sr i mean it can benefit other people to the touch you couldn't do it alone of course mr

muhammad stoffel it's much more brother how much to his friends you see with that and they're the reason they settle for me looking at the life with you is it and i don't. these are the we friends who know. the truth of it and we can they will stay away from me. i need somebody that i can to this. and i can just be able to dig through five. get. to the quiet would he goes to the meeting see the. place i put up with. really know exactly what the chances are you can sing so good that he said to ask if you're seeing something that means that things look from the end of the pin you got there we know. and. we different.

the new team was called continentals and this is the third member of the trio that founded it one he does he plays guitar bass and banjo sings like an angel and dresses flash when he's in the money which wasn't the case until today i'm happy as a citizen this started. but my wife was the only but it was everybody was with them . on the advance and every day is close just for food you can't even come on depp's of it on the. in case you're wondering i'm the watcher with the guitar i'm actually a writer but touching needed help and i was on it to be honest. we were always playing with different poise police said to me told. him need it we are going to. put on this school to learn to do so. and hope by about it was big. when it was what i was away in

a mean. as if. no one had. a platform to endure for five o'clock it was a show. they got me at the what i was told if you only. the businessman left the show but are brought in on the a tiny fraction of what the continentals need in months to come there will be more fundraising events karaoke from the like the progress is slower and some continental is a better name just a few of them since. i did this in their dead. they can see that they put out there to see their attic cover their goals as i pick it up and you know the governor and i sell of the it's just so you one o'clock one day

. donald up through and lives in the caravan his parents garden with his family he's just come out of prison and he's struggling to make ends meet sinjar says so i think it is letting go of it in a salable of it in the it's so it's just sort of you know he can see only for truth . in my heart must. know. meanwhile on the far side of the tracks the starlets of burden are brighter than ever. you know i call eat like the the c.e.o. before you got to tell me me me just go slow will be asleep i can never feel good and. i. i

i i the champion think everybody is that i've gotten you to see what they see. you know now now cause. approach just don't open your mouth and sing the first thing the simplest if you have the support of the state's young one that we are to be the at hand the. the conscious neighborhood on the other hand drugs are everywhere and discipline can be a problem but what i showed tonight it was pretty disappointing so. we don't tell you guys no to do whatever you want to do that is up to you but those who would win the themes in your mind we don't need people like to know how those item with their

money now how did mine know what county club it is pick any club for now i won't do it for half a day when the canola that you for non no he laughed at you can be said. and the constitution but see what they can oversee it so thank those that you send will take its course no metal with us that is trying to live we don't talk about it anymore the believe is coming out of delphine in the area that is known for its kind of thing that strikes me what we trying to do is get given away from the get into the place to see since it didn't teach him discipline so that it doesn't go into that only ninety percent of them is loaded with the confines. they enjoyed in jail with and just keep doing will keep finding that. in the five dollars the guy's out of the box and the practice the clock ticking at the club with him out the fantasy of being. back on sunday to since he.

says. sometimes he complains he does actually. well that's not the sports but see that's what i love and that's what's really good. because i mean really bad but i think that in the. past if you got it. that i would see any theme and what the scene and times.

and i mean. the scene i enjoy it seems. like i'm. going. to get scalped. and. close. my neighbors they could but then we have just two muslim families among the other families but we did speak with the sculptor and he needs it and we've been playing that music he's actually that you split a thing for this. entire summer and kept on the competition season is drawing near this is the silver says the holy grail the way things are going the continental isn't going to get anywhere

near it's a missing knight in shining armor comes to their wrist i believe a thing. i just adored is a prosperous business man this was dreamed of has and. this is what you do yes. but all this while trying to get enough. he's met in the context of the sec but we grew up in the lake why is interested in going to stock up on ping so we can get in there and we just do it for the. world to get it every day and everybody that's working on the site as well seeing as. the oh is it. we needed some money to depose a deal she'd school the competition so i mean gave me a way to get it he just brings people to give did what it takes to give it one yesterday or did like these that are look for details. and i took about twenty directions to the new city the way to faces will when i ended it takes is to them i

felt so good yesterday. these guys will be dancing while we played this whole lakeville thing more lively you know at least. it's new year's eve and big things are bring on the kids that's. one shudders to think what all this is costing mr dog the truck suits are just the start of it he's also hired a string section brass band and enough buses to transport hundreds of people. the festivities begin with a tour of the tough neighborhoods where most continentals lived before moving to middle class after they were mr dog's wife and two friends have prepared a feast for the multitude. johnson from the continental samba supporters piled back into the busses and head for the city proper. according to legend all this goes back to the opposition of slavery and it's unfair to fall on the stroke of midnight to those in bondage were

set free and they flooded into the streets to celebrate ever since muslims are march through krypton on that same night. but the magic that. to let people know. that was the fun part of the proceedings in the new year the struggle for the soul of the fez begins in deadly earnest this this is the distribution i've got to do from today on with and what you just seen the it is coming up on my program nobody else's pocket they must come on remind us they might as we'll as you back here at the end if i'm successful i can boast oh yeah. no really going both is and then

loving. clinton silver fizzes complicated you get points for singing points for dressing smart and then you hire an army sergeant to drill your team and you get judged on precision much of. the finely you get judged for your performance of a sacred song a form that is unique to this culture. and these sad old songs are haunted by a song that arrived on the cape and slave ships personified and sent off and so much merit to elements of western news and the call them in the middle and seats of the. for her. there

are. a little kid it's called a two hundred souls off of them i don't know because nobody close was kept to only the old people that actually knows the songs the nigger lands leak well never ever say it's not a for the late the will never that will stay or the forever war was was was. was case always with it in under ten fifty two hundred years it will need look a lot to teens immanence that some of us don't even understand it but as you know more and more and more they do come to see that old school there are those who look for those little before and now they were slaves and. they came to enjoy the shells buy c.d.'s and learn songs they could into so they sang.

god. budget box and cut your claim to like each other but you'd never guess it from the way the talk about one another most of those members with a stylus they will never be able to leave the starlets what evil bucks tells him to do if it goes into money to jump in the fire i am sure they will jump in the by diseases for the physical but these are the dumb game this is their first year we've got absolutely nothing to lose. e's got something to lose but we couldn't endure milk wooden nothing to lose to or the woods on the rope they were to stop like they want to keep us they want to win everything. if only one for life almost cut closeness and i can petition. all those off was getting. attended in the movies again beat to it line and seeing that other.

school in the. course of the world but the unwilling to be known all they did and i'm going to make all those other guys nervous too and i know what these guys get and what i think to do in those suits say you'll see a different lens a day. i saw much of the dress rehearsal and shells what could be a bad omen the tender isn't exactly up to scratch the plot to make it across might not that by so many did you must acquit do you think nobody bats an alchemy monday the month you have ten points for the job. it's not to put it to sleep that's not the public does it give. us.

a competition day to day of destiny for the continental. this event is run and run very strictly by the quiet board they have a rule that says on side has come out from the competition we spent many a year begging for an exemption but no luck. in the end the continentals decided to perform for us outside the venue. it was there and it will open sort of your case we were wrong apparently according to the board and you were the commission to do a video sale but i thought it was still on the bottom of the we're going to think that because it's not a did you see it. was not i don't know why you haven't anything on it would be to know what you want to put up what you are going to make sure no we go outside made us buy it be walking weekend it's a night at the. club.

and if. i go to the record the continental is one of nine a trophy for dressing up of all things for the wrists they were crushed maybe they were doomed from the outset and maybe it didn't really matter. of course we wanted to do it was the truth but. the guys in the states lived in before they would. be disappointed to go the last night but as you say life will go. you know just to see that deer stand on this a good owner has been given money to put in. and does for the services it went once again two hundred bucks and his infant symbol starlight's was i. to stand with all different kinds of people played together is just like the pilot

flying into the sky and sand and. does that moment music actually. i feel. i. think i eighty eight. they want to read the stylus they want to kill us they want to win everything. if only one for. the. was was. we but absolutely nothing to lose each got something to lose but we continue in

that until. the silver from the witness series in two thousand and seven do check out the rewind page at al-jazeera dot com for more films from the series that's it from us and so watch. we live in a time of war and tragedy it's crimes against humanity. activist repression. enforced disappearance arbitrary arrests. extrajudicial executions brutal torture the list goes on.

who investigates who judges the criminals. who compensates the victims the international conference on national regional and international mechanisms to combat impunity and ensure accountability under international law. organized by the national human rights committee. united nations human rights office of the high commissioner. european parliament. and global alliance of national human rights institutions. across europe immigration is high on the agenda and in hungary it's presented as

a pressing issue we didn't have immigrants' at all zero in the race but this is the one political topic anybody and everybody is discussing the far right is preparing for battle and their opponents or anyone who is different. prejudiced some tried in hungary on al-jazeera. driven by outrage and spanning generations the real hinge of demonstrators gathered on the very day a widely criticized repatriation agreement between the governments of bangladesh and me and more was to begin the anger was all too apparent and the fear was palpable if you don't like was so afraid that if they send one of us back to myanmar today tomorrow they'll send back ten and the day after tomorrow they'll send back twenty thirty or if we were given citizenship in myanmar then there would

be no need to take us back there we would go back on our own we must remember the rancho among the most persecuted minorities in the world. presidents prime minister someone's government ministers for exhaustive talks on break says as they use chief negotiator want to annoy deal departure is ever more likely. and how long he's in this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up six months after the killing of journalist jamal khashoggi reports say the saudi government paid his family millions of dollars in compensation. as the u.n. boards of ongoing food insecurity in africa.