Notes for the month of September

These are all my lecture notes for September

17 September 2008

News under repression

When: 1970 and 1980s
Where: Apartheid South Africa

Repression

violence
detention
trials
information control
Bantustan policy

Contestation

unions
youth
UDF/ Inkatha/ Unity movement
ANC/PAC/ Black consciousness

Response to information control

How?

Marginal/ underground
cheapcontrol process
gathering information
production
dissemination

What?

research
utilize what is there – courts, lanour

Problems

banning of publications
banning of people and organizations
distribution
money

10 September 2008

Alternative press in South Africa

In the 19th C, states and independent African Kingdoms

But community is increasingly imagined and organized as unitary and national with the rise of mineral revolution and SA war

Politics and publications.

Circulation

Literacy among adult African people rise steadily

1930s economic crisis and political repression destroyed alternative efforts to publish. Socialist journals the exception. Inkululeko and the Guardian

Commercial pressures and white ownership

Four phases in the history of alternate press

The African mission press – 1830s – 1880
the independent protest press – 1880s – 1930
searly resistant press – 1930s – 1960s
the later resistance press 1960 –

Focus on second phase

Eastern Cape – Tengo Jabavo and Imvo Zabantsundu
John Tengo Jabavo – 1959-1921
King Williams Town, Nov 1884. Imvo Zabantsundu launched: Sought to articulate and unify the interest of the emerging African Christian middle class

1887 – The parliamentary voters registration act
1892 – the franchise and ballot act

Northern Cape – Solomon Plaatjie Plaatjie and Koranta ea BecoanaSol Plaatjie
– 1876-1932Early education and work in Mafekeng and Kimberley.
Coverage of siege of Mafekeng – beginnings of his journalistic career.

On August 1901, Koranta ea Becoana (Bechuana Gazette) was launched.
News exchange from other countries and regionsLike Jabave, Christian, critical of Africans who did not give up traditional ways to become ‘civilised’ i.e. liberal-conservativeTsala ea Becoana
He joined the South African Native National Congress SANNC that formed in 1912 and was elected as Secretary General

Natives’ Land Act 1913Tsala’s circulation rose to 4000 by early 1914.
Plaatje= most widely read black journalist of his dayDelegation to EnglandNatalOne example is John Dube’s illanga Lase Natal, started in 1903.
Condemned slaughter rebels during Babbatha uprising.
But generally conservative in viewAnother example: Mohandas K Ghandi and Indian Opinion. 3 individuals founded Madanjit Viyavaharik, Mansukhal Hiral Nazar and Ghandi

In English, Hindi and Guajarati, Urdu and Tamil1st issue 4 June 1903 : 3paims of newspaper: imperial values, create unified Indian community out of extremely diverse populationremained elite in outlook, but did condemn indenture as a system of cruelty and evil

in 1907 the Transvaal government passed the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance resistance and goal – newspapers praised those in goal and condemned collaboratorsIndian opinion published inspiring quotations from authors such as Henry David’s Thoreau’s “on the duty of civil disobedience”

Satyagathra and Gandhi

All these examples use platform of newspapers as platform for civic engagement, to unify community opinion, to transform conditions in their world. All had hopes for change and believed in the principles of existing parliamentary system. Advocated for inclusion.