Sechaba as mondstuk in die ANC se stryd teen blanke oorheersing, 1967-1989

Abstract

After the ANC was banned in 1960 and was thus forced to move underground, the organisation's leadership in exile realised that a propaganda and communication organ had to be launched as matter of priority. This realisation was founded on the belief that a propaganda mouthpiece played an important role in any liberation movement's endeavours. The result of this was the launching of a monthly journal called Sechaba (or "nation" in the Sotho language) during January 1967. The journal was internationally recognised as the ANC's official mouthpiece. The last issue of Sechaba was published in December 1990. From the start, Sechaba experienced practical problems. The most important of these were that it was printed in the former German Democratic Republic (far removed from the situation in South Africa) and that the ANC constantly experienced financial difficulties. It can be stated that in style, content and composition Sechaba exhibited all the characteristics of traditional propaganda. Sechaba was thus a typical propaganda journal. It was originally envisaged that Sechaba would represent the international voice of the ANC. In this regard, the journal played an important role in the campaign to isolate South Africa. Political developments in South Africa during the seventies forced the ANC to shift the focus of Sechaba to South Africa's domestic audience. This created new challenges but also further problems for the ANC - especially since that meant that more copies of the journal had to be smuggled into South Africa. This problem was solved satisfactorily. In South Africa Sechaba was used, amongst other things, to canvass support for the ANC among the youth, students and women. This was done by harping on themes such as black nationalism and black theology. The journal was also used to propagate campaigns (one of which was the campaign to popularise the Freedom Charter), to introduce to South Africans the strategy and aims of the ANC and to analyse the system of apartheid and Afrikaners in general. In the ANC's, as well as Sechaba 's own estimation, the journal accomplished the tasks that it was launched to address. No scientific methods are available to test these statements. It can, however, be stated that there is evidence to show that the ANC's claims are not totally groundless. The fact that Sechaba was the best known source of propaganda among those of all the liberation movements operating in South Africa is but one example of this. It may therefore be stated that the ANC used its official organ, Sechaba, with reasonable success in its fight against white supremacy.