The Press and Apartheid: Repression and Propaganda in South Africa PDF
Preview The Press and Apartheid: Repression and Propaganda in South Africa
The Repression Press and Propaganda and In Apartheid South Africa WilliamA. The Hachten Press and and C. Anthony Apartheid Giffard Repression and Propaganda In Withtheeditorialassistance South Africa ofHarvaHachten M MACMILLAN Copyright © 1984 TheBoardofRegents of the Universityof Wisconsin System All rights reserved. Nopartofthis bookmay bereproduced in any form or by any means, without written permission from the publisher Softcovcrreprintofthehardcover1stedition 1984 First publishedin the United States of America in 19114by The Universityof Wisconsin Press FirstpublishedintheUnitedKingdom in1984by TIlEMACMILLANPRESSLID LondsmandBasingstoke Companiesandrepresentatives throughouttheworld British LibraryCataloguingin Publication Data Hachten, William A. The press and apartheid. I. Press-SouthMrica-History zothcentury I. Title II. Giffard, C. Anthony 079'.68 PN5474 ISBN978-1-349-07687-1 ISBN 978-1-349-07685-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-07685-7 Contents Introduction Vll 1 "Total Onslaught" against the Press 3 2 The Roots of the Conflict 2I 3 The Press Council: Self-Censorship through Intimidation 50 4 The Steyn Commission and Three Concepts of the Press 76 5 Legal Restraints on Newspapers 102 6 Suppression of the Black Press 130 7 Censorship under the Publications Acts 155 8 The Afrikaans Press: Freedom within Commitment 178 9 Broadcasting: Propaganda Arm of the National Party 200 10 Muldergate: Covert Efforts to Influence Opinion 229 II Changing Media in a Changing South Africa 262 Acknowledgments 291 Notes 293 Glossary 309 Bibliography 3II Index 327 Introduction South Africa! That country has virtually become a synonym for anachronism in the twentieth-century community ofnations thrust ing toward liberation, self-determination, and majority rule. The namealoneevokesimagesofracialstrifeanddiscrimination,ofaband ofdetermined whitemendefyingboth adisquietednonwhite major ity and the opinion ofmost ofthe world. After deadly riots and demonstrations, South Africain the I980s has been marked by a rising levelof urban terrorism and violence. Bombshaveexplodedin the busycentersofPretoria and Bloemfon tein, and South African Defense Forces have carried out punitive raids in neighboring Mozambique and Lesotho against suspected bases of the African National Congress, the exiled arm of black opposition. This low-levelcivil war of majority blacks against en trenched whites has been watched with increasing dismay by the outsideworld. AsoneSouthAfricannewspapereditorput it,"We're the polecat of the world." Inthis nation under stress--and South Africaissurely that-the pressandmasscommunicationingeneralarecaughtupineventsand, at times, become actors in the Greek tragedy soinexorablyplaying itself out at the southern end of Africa. This is a study both of measures taken by the South African government tocontrolitsmassmediaandoftheeffortsofitsjournal ists and others to express their views and resist those restraints. Essentially, the mediahave been-and are being-subjected to two vii viii Introduction kinds of government controls: coerciveand manipulative. Coercion includeslegislation thatdetermines whomay publish and what may be publishedaswellaslessdirect measures, suchasintimidatingthe press into self-censorship. Themanipulativecontrols comprise the extensivestate machinery used both to suppress unfavorable information and to promote a positive imageofofficialpoliciesat home and abroad. Someofthese activities, like those of the government information services, are overt. Others, like government controls over the broadcasting sys tem, are more subtle. But in the faceof hostile world opinion, the South Africangovernmenthasalsoresorted to illegalandclandestine operations to promote its point of view. Theabrasive relationship between the media and the government must be seen in the context of contemporary social, economic, and politicalforcesrooted deeplyin the history ofSouthAfrica.Forthat reason, our analysisofthe contemporaryconflictsbetween authority and the different media and the constituencies they serve will be presented in terms of their historical development. This, in essence, isacasestudy ofofficialexercisesofpowerover publiccommunicationinamodemnation.WhiteSouthAfricashares many characteristics with other Western societies--parliamentary democracy, an independent judiciary, a tradition ofpress freedom, and aneducatedand affluentpopulace. YetblackSouthAfricashares manyattributesofmuch ofthethirdworld-impoverished,illiterate, malnourished, and politically powerless. And in this context, free dom of the press, as well as civil liberties generally, has been de teriorating. Whathashappenedand continues tohappen couldoccur in other modem societiesas well. In many ways, however, South Africa is a special case-"a very strange society" with its white affluence and black poverty-and hence fascinating tostudy.TheRepublic ofSouth Africaisadeeply divided,multiracialsocietyofgreatcomplexity, controlledpolitically andeconomicallybyaminoritywhitepopulation.Thewhiteminority in tum is broadly split between English speakers, mainly ofBritish heritage, and the Afrikaners of Dutch, French Huguenot, and Ger mandescent. TheAfrikaners'Nationalparty hasheldpoliticalpower for over thirty-six years. A tangle of laws, administered by a mam- ix Introduction moth bureaucracy of civilservants, police, and security forces, has since 1948 maintained harsh and enforced separation of the races, known asapartheid, that has assured continued white privilegeand prerogatives in an increasinglyaffluenteconomyin whichcompara tivelyfewnonwhites share. Becauseraceor skin colorpermeates allaspectsof South African life, the population totals of ethnic groups involvedare important. There are about 5 million "whites" ofwhomabout 2.5 millionare Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaners, and about 1.5 million are ESSAs (English-speaking South Africans). In addition there are about 1 millionother "Europeans,"mainlyrecentlyarrivedPortuguese, Ital ians, and Greeks, who are largelyinactive politically. Among non whites or "blacks" are about 21 million Africans (Zulus, Xhosas, Sothos, Tswanas, Swazis, Vendas, Ndebeles, Shangaans, etc.), 2.7 million raciallymixed "Coloureds," and 840,000 "Asians," mostly Indians. To help retain political domination of both the privileged white minority and the unfranchised majority of nonwhites, successive National party governmentshaveimplementedwide-rangingrestric tive controls over allforms ofpublic communication (seeChap. 5). Most have been directed at the print media, the principal meansof expressing political opposition and dissent. (Radio and television broadcasting have long been firmly in the hands of government supporters, and hence require fewcontrols.) Historically,themassmediainSouthAfricahavemainlyservedthe whites, and the earliest newspapers, started in the nineteenth cen tury,wereinEnglish.Infragmented,cellularSouthAfrica,themedia have long reflected linguistic and ethnic divisionsas wellas white domination. The first radio service in 1927 was directed at white English speakers, and the first televisionserviceintroduced in 1976 wasfor whitesonly. Through much ofits mediahistory, the "non Europeans" have been eavesdroppers. That has changed. Today, a majority ofnewspaper readersand radiolistenersareAfricans,Col oureds,and Asians.Specialpublicationsandseparateradioand tele visionchannels are directed at different racialgroups. Diverse South Africaisservedby twenty-onegeneraldailynews papers, eight Sunday or weekly papers and a hundred weekly or x Introduction biweekly country papers.About fivehundredperiodicals, from spe cializedjournals tofamilyentertainmentmagazines,arepublishedin South Africa. In addition, hundreds of publications are imported from Britain, the United States, and Western Europe. Newspaper publishing is dominated by four groups-two each publishingmainly inEnglish orAfrikaans. Largest and mostpower ful is the Argus Printing and Publishing Company which controls seven dailies-the Johannesburg Star, Durban DailyNews, Cape Town Argus, Pretoria News, Bloemfontein Friend, Kimberley Dia mondFieldsAdvertiser,andtheSouietanwhichiseditedforAfricansin the Johannesburgarea. Argusalsoputs out twoweekendpapers, the CapeHerald, oriented toward Coloured peoplein the western Cape, and the SundayTribune of Durban. The other English medium group, SAAN (for South African Associated Newspapers), includes four dailies, theRandDailyMail ofJohannesburg, theEasternProvinceHeraldandEveningPost,both ofPortElizabeth,and theCapeTimes, plustwoweekend papers, the SundayTimesandSundayExpress, and theFinancialMail,aweekly. ThedailyNatalMercuryofDurbanismostlyownedbySAAN.There are twoindependentdailies, the DailyDispatch ofEast London and the Natal Witness of Pietermaritzburg. Argusand SAANarefinanciallylinked,withArgusholding40per cent of SAAN stock and SAAN holding asomewhat smaller part of Argus. Both publishing groups are financially tied to mining and industrial interests, and their interlocking ownership makes them vulnerable togovernmentchargesofmonopolyand concentrationof ownership. ThetwoAfrikaans press groups, Perskorand Nasionale Pers, not only arefinanciallyunallied but arehighy competitive and represent differentfactions within theNational party.NasionalePersownsthe dailies DieBurger of Cape Town, Die Volksblad of Bloemfontein, BeeldofJohannesburg, and OosterligofPortElizabeth. Perskorhad long owned the Johannesburg dailiesDieTransvaler and DieVader land,aswellastwosmalldailiesinPretoria,HoofstadandOggendblad. Asaresult ofthe intense competition between Beeldand DieTrans valer,Die Transvaler was moved to Pretoria in early 1983to merge xi Introduction with and replaceHoofstad and Oggendblad. Both groups jointlyown the successful weekend newspaper Rapport. Asignificant characteristic of the South African press isthe clear predominance of the English-language newspapers. Although Afri kaans-speakingwhitesoutnumberEnglish-speaking whitesbyaratio ofsixto four, the English papers account for three-quarters oftotal dailycirculationand two-thirdsofSunday circulation.Agreat many Afrikaners, as well as nonwhites, read the English press, but few English speakers or nonwhites read Afrikaans papers. The only English paper supporting the Nationalists was The Citizen, which was started in 1975 with secret government funds. After the government involvement wasrevealedduring the Mulder gatescandal (seeChap. 10), itwastaken over, atleastostensibly, by Perskor. The black press has been severely eclipsed in recent years (see Chap. 6). Yet weeklies aimed by white publishers at specificracial groups havebeenafast-growingaspectofSouthAfrican journalism. TheCapeHeraldintendedforcolouredsintheCapeTown areahada 1982circulation of50,000.ThePostlNatalin Durbanwasedited for Asiansand had acirculation of34,000.Ilanga, publishedinthe Zulu language,sold107,000copiesaweekin1982, andImvoZabantsundu, aXhosa-language paper inthe EasternCape, had 50,000circulation the same year. Historically, various groups in South Africa-mainly some En glish-speaking whites, the defeated Afrikaners after the Boer War, the urban Africans, and, to a lesser extent, the Coloureds and Asians--have utilized newspapers and the printed word to express their political aspirations and to contest at times either English or Afrikaner domination. This political discord is further reflected in three distinctconcepts or theories ofthe press--Afrikaner, English, and African--coexisting uncomfortably within South Africa. The Afrikanerpress hashistoricallybeenaninstrumentofNational party political aspirations; it served to bring the National party to power and generally supports goalsof the Nationalists. The English press concept, anchored in private ownership and reflecting Anglo American traditionsofpress freedom, callsforan informational and
The list of books you might like
