----------------------------Original message---------------------------- From: [log in to unmask] Date: 11 Jan 95 10:37:40 SAST-2 > Jeremy--I'm not sure if this fits your category, and I'm sure others on > this list are far more knowledgable than I, but I'm sure the curious > practice of "banning" individuals in South Africa gave rise to some > interesting discrepencies of representation. > > --Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN Dear Don Banning, jailing - all attempts to efface people and their beliefs - led to interesting results here, to say the least. The first picture of Mandela after his release, was printed on the front pages of a mainstream newspaper here, with the words: Here he is. It's still among many people's favourite clippings. Censorship tries most of all to hide its own existence, but brave, especially alternative, newspaper editors in South Africa tried to subvert that at the height of repression by actually printing their newspapers with crude black lines where censored articles would have been. Then this too was banned. T-shirts with "subversive" messages were banned. Just as it attempted to create "pure" areas of the country, the State tried to "purify" minds of alternatives and opposition; it tried to pretend that its vision - apartheid, and its reformist mutations - was the only one. Surveys among some white viewers showed that this was distressing successful; our television was amongst the most crudely wielded of these state apparatuses. Recent public hearings for the new South African Broadcasting Corporation Board produced a rivetting moment: a unshakeable black judge questioned the old Board Chairperson, Christo Viljoen, about the lack of access to the state broadcaster suffered by legal, but obviously discriminated against, extra-parliamentary groups. Viljoen had no answer. It was the most devastating moment of truth - silence. I would say that bannings and censorship lead to a dangerous hierarchy of those who have access to information, and those who do not. Information is an instrument of power, and diminished access merely places that power in fewer hands. Thank you Don for raising this issue. Gabeba Baderoon, U Cape Town Gabeba Baderoon Department of English University of Cape Tonw [log in to unmask]