Supping with the Devil: Zulu Radio Drama under Apartheid—The Case of Alexius Buthelezi

Author: Gunner, Liz

Source: Social Identities, Volume 11, Number 2, March 2005 , pp. 161-169(9)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

This paper sets out the case of a gifted and innovative individual, Alexius Buthelezi, who was part of a talented team of black radio producers, scriptwriters, actors and announcers at the SABC in the 1960s. All worked in the section of the SABC known as Radio Bantu, a structure set up to implement the apartheid ideology of control of the lives and mindsets of the black subjects of the South African state. I argue that within this unpromising media environment, Buthelezi attempted, with his colleagues, to create a different notion of ‘home'. He did so by producing vibrant and eclectic new forms, such as that exemplified in the musical uNokhewzi . These were modern, expansive, myth-making, and incorporated rather than jettisoned older art forms such as the ingenkwane , oral narrative. The attempt at a kind of dissident modernist renaissance through the medium of radio, right under the nose of the ideologues of apartheid, was a brave attempt to ‘sup with the devil'.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504630500161615

Publication date: 2005-03-01

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