Grassroots from Washing Lines to Utopia

282 / Franz Krüger 32. Ecna, annual report, 1993/94. 33. Ecna, annual report, 1992/93. 34. Group Editor's Report, 6 June 1994. 35. Ecna, annual report, 1992/93. 36. Ecna, annual report, 1993/94. Grassroots From Washing Lines to Utopia Ineke van Kessel The revival of populär protest in the first half of the 1980s, with the emergence of hundreds of new community and youth organizations, was also marked by a proliferation of new mass media. The sophisticated use of media in addressing both inter- rial and international audiences was one of the distinct charac- teristics of this last generation of resistance against apartheid. Grassroots, a publication aimed at a Coloured and African readership in the Cape Peninsula, was a pioneering effort to forge a new genre of local community newspapers.1 Grassroots formed part of the new alternative media that sprang up in the 1980s to contest the prevailing world view of the mainstream, white-controlled commercial newspapers.2 While communica- tion between mainstream newspapers and their publiés is largely a one-way street, community newspapers aspired to interact with their readership and to help shape, rather than only report, events. The commercial press was seen as upholder of the status quo, while nonprofit community media regarded themselves as part of the movement for political and social change. Launched 283 284 / Ineke van Kessel Grassroots: From Washmg Lines to Utopia / 285 in 1980, Grassroots became a model for local publications. tömunity issues were the lifeblood of the newspaper, but versity towns in particular proved fertile ground for the pli lessing community issues was not an end in itself. Grass- ing of alternative newspapers and pamphlets. Many vent« ffstrategists initially went for low-threshold campaigns, on were short lived, but Grassroots lasted a decade before it fir teumption that it is easier to involve people in local issues ceased publication in 1990. |.carry a low risk and a high chance of success than to Inspiration for the community newspapers was derh ge them into "high politics." A demand for more washing from experiments with populär mobilization in Latin Americ ' in the courtyard was nonconfrontational and could at- from Leninist classics, and from the ANC. Faithful to Ler i support from women who would normally stay aloof prescription for a newspaper as an organizing tooi, produc l politics. Once the battle for more washing lines had been a newspaper was not seen as a goal in itself but as a means , Grassroots would introducé the message that people can an end. Grassroots staff members were known as Organizers •ove their own Situation through organizational efïbrts. "news Organizer" rather than "journalist" was the job title \ ding confidence in the benefits of collective action was irri- the person in charge of news gathering and editing. The news tant to counter a history of disempowerment. Among paper's ambitions were summed up in the acronym POEJ löured people in the Cape it was widely believed that while Popularize, Organize, Educate, and Mobilize.3 iicans had a history of organized resistance, Coloured peo- A tabloid with a five-week cycle of publication, Grassroot i lacked the confidence to stand together: "Kleurlinge kan aimed to "articulate the views and aspirations of communitie R! saamstaam nie" (Coloureds cannot stand together). and workers."4 The frequency of five weeks rather than a mont As an organizing tooi, Grassroots set itself the long-term was a tactic used to avoid falling within the legal definition < j0al of ejigaging local organizations in the struggle against a newspaper, and therefore Grassroots was not required to reg- •fee South African state. Bread-and-butter issues were a means ister and pay a security deposit of R40,OOO. In almost everyJ |JQ an end, stepping-stones in a process of mobilization against issue, a bold headline exposing a scandaleus deed by the gov- acial and class oppression. The Grassroots staff did not per- ernment or celebrating a heroic victory by the people was fea- èive themselves primarily as journalists. Notions like objec- tured under its bright red masthead: "They'll Starve Us to ity and Separation of news and comment belonged to the Death," exclaimed a story about a rise in the bread price. "Af- alm of the "bourgeois" liberal press, which served the inter- dakkies to Stay," assured an article that explained how "the ts of the ruling class. Grassroots "organisers" were media people" had forced the town council to give in to their demand E..workers with an unashamedly propaganda mission. While the that residents be allowed to build corrugated iron extensions [(Commercial press presumably anesthetized its readership with to their houses. On the inside pages, Grassroots offered advice •*Sex, sin, and soccer," the community media meant to consci- on pensions, divorce, unemployment benefits, and the preven- ; entize their readers and to encourage them to promote change tion of nappie rash; celebrated Charterist heroes of the 1950s; l through collective action. and detailed the everyday struggles of ordinary people. Promi- Grassroots defined its constituency as "the oppressed and ex- nent themes were housing and rent struggles, labor issues, and ploited majority," a phrase that refers to the African, Coloured, the costs of living. and Indian population. Although these population groups could Grassroots-. From WashingLines to Utopia / 287 286 / Ineke van Kessel all be considered oppressed, they were differentially affect f Langa, Nyanga, and Gugulethu, no housing was made avail- by apartheid legislation. The use of the term community sug ie to Africans. Coloured people and African township resi- gests a certain homogeneity and cohesiveness. In fact, the flts with permits enjoyed secure residential rights. But most "community" that Grassroots meant to serve is one of the leastj Ticans in the western Cape were "ülegals," who settled m homogeneous of South Africa. In terms of organizing and mo „rawling squatter camps, continuously subjected to police raids bilizing people, the composition of the western Cape popula-1 üd deportations to the Transkei and the Ciskei. While orgam- tion posed obvious problems. ations in the African townships of the Transvaal could draw on tsizeable reservoir of professionals and an educated workmg- ss leadership, the western Cape had only a limited potential The Western Cape: A Fragmented "Community" p providing African leadership in trade unions, community ïrganizations, and the umbrella structure of the United De- In apartheid terms, the western Cape was to be the unofficial laiocratic Front. The UDF western Cape was dominated by "homeland" of the Coloured people. The introduction of the iColoureds —including many with university backgrounds— Coloured Labour Preference Policy in the mid-1950s aimed at f'and some white intellectuals. ANC traditions have generally been weak in the western reducing the size of the African population. Under this policy, J which was only abolished in 1984, employers were obliged to Cape The Coloured People's Congress, which represented the give preference to Coloured labor. African workers could only Coloureds in the Congress Alliance in the 1950s, was small m be hired if no Coloureds were available. Africans were there- numbers and weak in organization, in contrast to the much fore relegated to the most poorly paid and unskilled jobs. As more influential South African Indian Congress. A large part Cape Town was destined to be a "white" city, its Coloured and of the Coloured pbpulation kept aloof from politics. Social con- African inhabitants were forcibly resettled on the uninviting servatism and the religious orthodoxy of the main Coloured sandy plains of the Cape Flats, and the multiracial heart of the church, the Nederduits Gereformeerde Sendingskerk, were city, District Six, was destroyed. The Group Areas Act, designed more characteristic of large sections of the Coloured popula- to purge the white-designated cities of their black inhabitants, tion than political radicalism or working-class consciousness. caused enormous social and psychological dislocation. The so- The Coloured Muslim population of the Cape also tended to cial fabric that held District Six together disintegrated when be conservative. Radicals in both communities found outlets m its inhabitants were scattered over the Cape Flats, where per- the Trotskyite New Unity Movement and other smaller left- sistent high unemployment went hand in hand with a high ists movements. The African townships in the western Cape crime rate. For the Cape Coloured people, the Group Areas did have an ANC presence, which was to some extent carried Act was perhaps the most hated piece of apartheid legislation. over into sections of the trade union movement such as the One consequence of the Coloured Labour Preference Policy African Food and Canning Workers' Union. But when young was the lack of opportunities for African advancement. Most Coloured activists began "discovering" the ANC in the early African workers were unskilled or semiskilled, and many were 1980S, they were mostly discovering the ANC in exüe rather migrants. Apart from the three established African townships than the ANC tradition that had survived in the townships. 288 / Ineke van Kessel Grassroots: From Washmg Lines to Utopia / 289 The racial divide was not the only dividing line; the fracture aready-made distribution channel provided by community or- pattern also ran along ideological, religieus, linguistic, genera- ganizations. tional, and socioeconomic Unes. Afrikaans is the language of The repressive post-1976 years, when overt political activ- the Coloured working class; Xhosa is most widely spoken in ity was virtually impossible, forced activists into more reflec- the African townships; English was the language of the anti- tive and strategizing sessions. This was also a period of apartheid struggle and sections of the intellectual elite. The ideological reorientation. The long suppressed tradition of economy is dominated by light manufacturing, mainly textiles Charterism, associated with the ANC, reemerged and began to and food processing.

Load more