Sowetan Archive, 1981-Today Explore South African Life During and After the Apartheid Era

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Sowetan Archive, 1981-today Explore South African life during and after the Apartheid era Quick Facts A leading anti-apartheid voice that became a nationally renowned newspaper Chronicles life in South Africa during and after apartheid, including politics, culture, sport, business and more A unique digital archive offers new opportunities for research and teaching Overview One of South Africa’s most prominent newspapers, the Sowetan was launched as a response to apartheid conditions in Soweto and other segregated communities. Impassioned editorials, engaging political columns and firsthand reporting soon helped The Sowetan become the country’s most widely circulated black paper. Now, each issue is available in a fully searchable digital archive, giving students and researchers unprecedented access to decades of South African history. An uncompromising editorial stance After the South African government banned publication of the Post Transvaal and three other black newspapers in 1980, journalists, editors and publishers began producing the English-language paper the Sowetan. This new paper captured the ongoing liberation struggle in stunning detail, bolstered by the contributions of legendary editors like Percy Qoboza and Aggrey Klaaste. Although writers covered major news and political issues from the perspective of disenfranchised communities, the paper wasn’t purely oppositional: it also engaged community members in nation-building initiatives, work that earned praise from Nelson Mandela. A window into South Africa Today, the Sowetan is available in all nine South African provinces and is an indispensable resource for understanding South African history and current events. Researchers can peruse articles, photographs, editorials, advertisements and more, uncovering fresh insight into politics, culture, sport, business, people, issues and events across nearly four decades. Topics include political assassinations, white supremacist groups, the fall of apartheid, readmission to the United Nations, financial instability, the AIDS epidemic and much more. A valuable digital edition With this searchable online resource, users can easily search and browse the complete archives of the Sowetan. Readex’s intuitive interface lets users view, magnify, print and save page images, as well as cross search related collections, including the Sunday Times, Rand Daily Mail and other titles spanning the continent. For more information on this and other NewsBank collections, call collect 1.802.875.2910 (Outside U.S. and Canada), email [email protected] or visit www.newsbank.com Int’l-052419.

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Zapiro : Tooning the Odds
12 Zapiro : Tooning The Odds Jonathan Shapiro, or Zapiro, is the editorial cartoonist for The Sowetan, the Mail & Guardian and the Sunday Times, and his work is a richly inventive daily commentary on the rocky evolution of South African democracy. Zapiro’s platforms in the the country’s two largest mass-market English-language newspapers, along with one of the most influential weeklies, give him influential access to a large share of the national reading public. He occupies this potent cultural stage with a dual voice: one that combines a persistent satirical assault on the seats of national and global power with an unambiguous commitment to the fundamentally optimistic “nation-building” narrative within South African political culture. Jeremy Cronin asserts that Zapiro "is developing a national lexicon, a visual, verbal and moral vocabulary that enables us to talk to each other, about each other."2 It might also be said that the lexicon he develops allows him to write a persistent dialogue between two intersecting tones within his own journalistic voice; that his cartoons collectively dramatise the tension between national cohesion and tangible progress on the one hand, and on the other hand the recurring danger of damage to the mutable and vulnerable social contract that underpins South African democracy. This chapter will outline Zapiro’s political and creative development, before identifying his major formal devices and discussing his treatment of some persistent themes in cartoons produced over the last two years. Lines of attack: Zapiro’s early work Zapiro’s current political outlook germinated during the State of Emergency years in the mid- eighties: he returned from military service with a fervent opposition to the apartheid state, became an organiser for the End Conscription Campaign, and turned his pen to struggle pamphlets.
[Show full text]
Blurred Lines
BLURRED LINES: HOW SOUTH AFRICA’S INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM HAS CHANGED WITH A NEW DEMOCRACY AND EVOLVING COMMUNICATION TOOLS Zoe Schaver The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Media and Journalism Advised by: __________________________ Chris Roush __________________________ Paul O’Connor __________________________ Jock Lauterer BLURRED LINES 1 ABSTRACT South Africa’s developing democracy, along with globalization and advances in technology, have created a confusing and chaotic environment for the country’s journalists. This research paper provides an overview of the history of the South African press, particularly the “alternative” press, since the early 1900s until 1994, when democracy came to South Africa. Through an in-depth analysis of the African National Congress’s relationship with the press, the commercialization of the press and new developments in technology and news accessibility over the past two decades, the paper goes on to argue that while journalists have been distracted by heated debates within the media and the government about press freedom, and while South African media companies have aggressively cut costs and focused on urban areas, the South African press has lost touch with ordinary South Africans — especially historically disadvantaged South Africans, who are still struggling and who most need representation in news coverage. BLURRED LINES 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I: Introduction A. Background and Purpose B. Research Questions and Methodology C. Definitions Chapter II: Review of Literature A. History of the Alternative Press in South Africa B. Censorship of the Alternative Press under Apartheid Chapter III: Media-State Relations Post-1994 Chapter IV: Profits, the Press, and the Public Chapter V: Discussion and Conclusion BLURRED LINES 3 CHAPTER I: Introduction A.
[Show full text]
Dr Abu Baker ‘Hurley’ Asvat
Dr Abu Baker ‘Hurley’ Asvat This article was published on South African History Online South African History online (SAHO) is a non-partisan people’s history institution. It was established in June 2000 as a non-profit Section 21 organisation, to address the biased way in which South Africa’s history and heritage, as well as the history and heritage of Africa is represented in educational and cultural institutions. Abstract The article is a biography of Dr Abu Baker ‘Hurley’ Asvat, better known as the people’s doctor, from his childhood in Vrededorp to his medical study and political activism as part of a Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)-aligned students group. More importantly the article brings to light the significant role the peoples’ doctor played in non-racial cricket and his emergence as a vital figure in Sowto’s life and politics. Key words: Dr Abu Baker ‘Hurley’ Asvat, Azania People’s Organization, Black Consciousness (BC), medical activism, non-racialism The ‘People’s Doctor’ ‘He struggled to liberate society from oppression. He gave his life so that others may have a better life. He was a true patriot as a man of unity in the struggle against apartheid. His sacrifices were not in vain as his principles, beliefs and action touched many communities and helped to restore the dignity of destitute people’ (Prayer for Dr. Asvat, 2010). Childhood and Schooling On 23 February 1943, Abu Baker Asvat was born in Vrededorp(Fietas), South Africa.He spent his youth in Fietas, playing football and cricket on the playing grounds near his house.
[Show full text]
The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project STEVE McDONALD Interviewed by: Dan Whitman Initial Interview Date: August 17, 2011 Copyright 2018 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Education MA, South African Policy Studies, University of London 1975 Joined Foreign Service 1975 Washington, DC 1975 Desk Officer for Portuguese African Colonies Pretoria, South Africa 1976-1979 Political Officer -- Black Affairs Retired from the Foreign Service 1980 Professor at Drury College in Missouri 1980-1982 Consultant, Ford Foundation’s Study 1980-1982 “South Africa: Time Running Out” Head of U.S. South Africa Leadership Exchange Program 1982-1987 Managed South Africa Policy Forum at the Aspen Institute 1987-1992 Worked for African American Institute 1992-2002 Consultant for the Wilson Center 2002-2008 Consulting Director at Wilson Center 2009-2013 INTERVIEW Q: Here we go. This is Dan Whitman interviewing Steve McDonald at the Wilson Center in downtown Washington. It is August 17. Steve McDonald, you are about to correct me the head of the Africa section… McDONALD: Well the head of the Africa program and the project on leadership and building state capacity at the Woodrow Wilson international center for scholars. 1 Q: That is easy for you to say. Thank you for getting that on the record, and it will be in the transcript. In the Wilson Center many would say the prime research center on the East Coast. McDONALD: I think it is true. It is a think tank a research and academic body that has approximately 150 fellows annually from all over the world looking at policy issues.
[Show full text]
Soweto, the S“ Torybook Place”: Tourism and Feeling in a South African Township Sarah Marie Kgagudi University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2019 Soweto, The s“ torybook Place”: Tourism And Feeling In A South African Township Sarah Marie Kgagudi University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Linguistics Commons, Music Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Kgagudi, Sarah Marie, "Soweto, The s“ torybook Place”: Tourism And Feeling In A South African Township" (2019). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 3320. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3320 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3320 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Soweto, The s“ torybook Place”: Tourism And Feeling In A South African Township Abstract This dissertation deals with the role of tour guides in creating and telling the story of Soweto – a township southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. The ts ory speaks of a place afflicted by poverty because of its history of segregation during apartheid but emerging out of these struggles to lead its nation in a post-apartheid culture. I argue that Soweto’s story was created out of a governmental mandate for the township to become one of Gauteng’s tourism locations, and out of a knowledge that the transformation story from apartheid to a ‘rainbow nation’ would not sell in this context. After being created, Soweto’s story was affirmed through urban branding strategies and distributed to tourism markets across the world. It is a storybook – a narrative with a beginning, a climax, and an ending; it is easily packaged, marketed and sold to individuals from across the world, and this is done through the senses and emotions.
[Show full text]
The Changing Dynamics of Social Class, Mobility and Housing in Black Johannesburg1
The Changing Dynamics of Social Class, Mobility and Housing in Black Johannesburg1 Detlev Krige Abstract In contemporary public debates regarding the significance of social mobility, new cultures of consumption and the black middle class, the point is often made that Africans living in urban areas before the onset of constitutional democracy were a homogenous group lacking in significant forms of social differentiation. The continued side-lining of long histories of social differentiation among urban Africans today has the effect not only of indirectly overstating the role recent policies such as affirmative action has played in the emergence of the ‘new’ black middle class, but also in limiting the public understanding of the historically constructed, multiple and complex meanings that practices of consumption has had in urban African municipal locations. In this article, I argue for historically-sensitive and ethnographically-informed analyses of consumption practices that move beyond the stereotyping of the black middle class as ‘conspicuous consumers’. Looking at the history of public housing in Soweto helps us understand that ‘new’ cultures of consumption among citizens is often rooted in everyday experiences as subjects residing in social spaces – former urban African municipal locations – that were defined and designed as spaces of consumption and not of production or income-generation. The arguments contained in this article build on insights derived from my reading of James Ferguson (2002) and Daniel Miller (1988), especially around challenging interpretations of the renovations of municipal-owned housing in Soweto as a form of conspicuous consumption. 1 This article has benefited from comments provided by two anonymous reviewers.
[Show full text]
History P2 Exemplar 2014 Addendum
NATIONAL SENIOR CERTIFICATE GRADE 12 HISTORY P2 EXEMPLAR 2014 ADDENDUM This addendum consists of 12 pages. Copyright reserved Please turn over History/P2 2 DBE/2014 NSC – Grade 12 Exemplar – Addendum QUESTION 1: HOW DID THE IDEAS OF THE BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS MOVEMENT CHALLENGE THE APARTHEID REGIME IN THE 1970s? SOURCE 1A The extract below focuses on the philosophy of Black Consciousness (BC). Black Consciousness (BC) became a doctrine of self-emancipation and a strategy for escape from the political doldrums (state of stagnation) into which South Africa had been cast in the 1960s. BC was also the breeding ground for a new generation of leaders and the training ground for imparting organisational skills. BC succeeded in popularising self-reliance as a viable (practicable) liberation strategy. Its initiatives in launching a student movement and adult political organisations, leadership training programmes, and in enunciating (uttering) a philosophy which accorded with the dignity of the downtrodden (burdened) and oppressed, served to demonstrate that self- reliance was attainable. The tasks BC set were to uplift sagging spirits; raise battered self-esteem; affirm identity and assert human dignity; fight off apathy and stagnation; turn racial stereotypes on their heads; exorcise (to get rid of) the arsenal (collection) of complexes that haunted and kept down individuals and communities; instil self- confidence and self-reliance and reinvigorate (revive) the masses in their struggle for emancipation (freedom). [From: The Road to Democracy in South Africa Vol. 2 by MV Mzamane et al.] SOURCE 1B This source describes the organisations that were established as a result of the philosophy of Black Consciousness.
[Show full text]
Sowetan and Mail and Guardian 1
CHAPTER 3 THE HISTORIES: SOWETAN AND MAIL AND GUARDIAN 1. Introduction This chapter offers the histories of both the Sowetan and the Mail & Guardian and applies the theories discussed in the previous chapter. This is done as an attempt to contextualise the newspapers under review within the theoretical framework. Important here is the fact that historical processes have played a role in how these newspapers have reached their contemporary form. In a nutshell the chapter highlights how these newspapers related to the apartheid government and how they relate to the democratic government. It also attempts to show how these newspapers have been drawn in the transition from apartheid to democracy. 2. The Sowetan The Sowetan, grew out of the Bantu World which was founded in 1932 with the ANC leader Selope Thema as the editor. Bantu World was a product of the white capitalist conviction that there was money to be made out of blacks and “a belief in moulding native opinion so that political developments would follow the course of ‘reasoned protest’ with the ultimate aim of raising the masses to the ‘civilised standards’ of the white man” (Tomaselli and Louw, 1991:21). In 1955 Bantu World changed its name to The World and was regarded as a widely read and influential black newspaper (Tomaselli and Louw, 1991). Tomaselli and Louw (1991) argue that before Percy Qoboza’s era (Qoboza joined The World in 1974), The World’s editorial policy was less critical of apartheid policies especially in comparison to the Rand Daily Mail which also targeted black readers.
[Show full text]
Johannesburg and Its Epidemics: Can We Learn from History?
GCRO OCCASIONAL PAPER # NO. 16 Johannesburg and its epidemics: Can we learn from history? NOVEMBER 2020 Author: Philip Harrison v a The GCRO comprises a partnership of: JOHANNESBURG AND ITS EPIDEMICS: CAN WE LEARN FROM HISTORY? Publishers: Gauteng City-Region Observatory Author: Philip Harrison (GCRO), a partnership of the University of Design: Breinstorm Brand Architects Johannesburg, the University of the Witwatersrand, Page layout: Lumina Datamatics Johannesburg, the Gauteng Provincial Government Production manager: Simon Chislett and organised local government in Gauteng (SALGA). Cover image: Thapelo Morebudi/Sunday Times © November 2020 GCRO DOI: 10.36634/2020.op.2 ISBN: 978-1-990972-11-9 (XML) ISBN: 978-1-990972-12-6 (Web pdf) GCRO OCCASIONAL PAPER # NO. 16 Johannesburg and its epidemics: Can we learn from history? NOVEMBER 2020 Author: Philip Harrison GCRO OCCASIONAL PAPER #16 Contents Tables and figures .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................iii Timeline ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................iv Map of the Cape Colony, Orange Free State and the South African Republic, 1900 ...........................................................................................vi
[Show full text]
Restrictions Imposed on the Media in South Africa Since 21 July 1985
Restrictions Imposed on the Media in South Africa since 21 July 1985 http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1987_14 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Restrictions Imposed on the Media in South Africa since 21 July 1985 Alternative title Notes and Documents - United Nations Centre Against ApartheidNo. 12/87 Author/Creator United Nations Centre against Apartheid; International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa Publisher United Nations, New York Date 1987-09-00 Resource type Reports Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa Coverage (temporal) 1985 - 1987 Source Northwestern University Libraries Description This paper has been prepared by the Research, Information and Publications Department of the London-based International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAP) for use at the Seminar on the Role of the Latin American and Caribbean Media in the International Campaign against Apartheid.
[Show full text]
The Rise and Fall of the Alternative Press in South Africa
Les Switzer, Mohamed Adhikari, eds.. South Africa's Resistance Press: Alternative Voices in the Last Generation under Apartheid. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000. xxii + 505 pp. $30.00, paper, ISBN 978-0-89680-213-1. Reviewed by Alan G. Cobley Published on H-SAfrica (September, 2001) The Rise and Fall of the Alternative Press in other contributions to the collection, and is used South Africa by Switzer as a vehicle for a concise but extreme‐ In the preface, this book is described as the ly useful historical survey of the 'resistance press' third in a trilogy which began twenty-two years in South Africa, with special reference to the ago with the publication of The Black Press in 1980s and early 1990s. South Africa and Lesotho: A Descriptive Biblio‐ The rest of the book is divided into two un‐ graphical Guide, 1836-1976 (Boston: G. K. Hall, equal sections: Part I contains three chapters, and 1979) by Les and Donna Switzer. The second in deals with the period prior to the 1980s, while the trilogy, edited by Les Switzer, was entitled Part II contains seven chapters, and focuses on South Africa's Alternative Press: Voices of Protest the tumultuous decade-and-a-half from 1980 to and Resistance, 1880-1960 (Cambridge: Cam‐ 1994. bridge University Press, 1997). In this latest publi‐ The main weakness in this collection con‐ cation, Switzer is joined by Mohamed Adhikari as cerns this division. Part I--entitled 'In Transition: co-editor. It opens with an extensive (seventy-ﬁve From Protest to Resistance' --seems incomplete pages) introduction by Switzer which seeks to lay and lacking in coherence compared to Part II, en‐ out the framework within which South Africa's titled 'On the Barricades: The Struggle for South 'resistance press' developed.
[Show full text]
Searchlight South Africa
SEARCHLIGHT SOUTH AFRICA No 9 August 1992 R9/E3.50 SEARCHLIGHT SOUTH AFRICA Vol 3, No 1 (No 9) A Marxist Journal of Southern African Studies Editorial — Death in Boipatong 1 - Restating our Policy 9 Robert Fine — Civil Society Theory and the Politics of Transition in South Africa Paul Trewhela — The Mistrial of Winnie Mandela: A Problem of Justice 32 Baruch Hirson — Ruth Schechter: Friend to Olive Schreiner 47 Paul TVewhela — A Can of Worms: The Imprisonment of Hubert Sipho Mbeje 72 Baruch Hirson — Nationalisation: A Matter of Slogans? (Review) 79 Paul TVewhela — Beneath the Boulder (Review) 89 Index to Vols 1 and 2 93 Cover Picture: Rufino Tamayo, Animals (1942) SEARCHLIGHT SOUTH AFRICA Published Quarterly Addresses: 13 Talbot Av, London N2 OLS, Great Britain PO Box 66314, Broadway, Johannesburg ,2020 ISSN: 0954-3384 Editors: Baruch Hirson, Paul Trewhela, Hillel Ticktin [Ami ;-i|iil |§§| RSA Institution. Brita, Bfoe^ I Iftdi\ Institul ilent)| We tegrat th .able J Our Note to Readers From issue No 8, Searchlight South Africa has been printed and distributed in Johannes burg, to avoid the endless interference with our mail in South Africa. We have also reduced our price to a minimum in South Africa because of the extreme poverty of African workers. Readers who can afford a higher price will benefit. We hope that they will send us donations to recover some of our costs. Unfortunately we cannot lower the price outside South Africa, but we are not raising our price to meet higher postage and other costs. There will be no changes in our policies and the editorial board will stay, at least for the present, in London.
[Show full text]