Guerrilla Radios in Southern Africa

Broadcasters, Technology, Propaganda Wars, and the Armed Struggle

Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi, Tshepo Moloi, Alda Romão Saúte Saíde

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Year: 2020
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786615619
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Guerrilla Radios in Southern Africa is a collection of essays on the histories of the different radios of the liberation movements in the region during the era of the armed struggle.

From Angola and Mozambique, to Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the new technology of radio provided the liberation movements in exile with a platform to address their followers at home, to propagate their ideologies and to counter the propaganda of the oppressive white minority regimes. As the cheapest and most direct medium, guerrilla radios transcended the boundaries imposed by the settler regimes and were widely listened to, albeit within the realm of illegality.

Transnational in its approach, the book explores the workings of these radios from their areas of broadcast in exile, international solidarity, to reception at home where listeners often huddled around their receivers to listen to the messages from the liberation movements, often beyond the gaze of the state. These radios shaped the nature of resistance campaigns that the liberation movements embarked upon in the various countries in the region.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Acknowledgments
• Radios of the Liberation Struggle in Southern Africa
• A Voz da Frelimo and the Liberation of Mozambique
• Guerrilla Broadcasters and the Unnerved Colonial State in Angola, 1961–1974
• Broadcasting Chimurenga—Engineering a Postcolonial Zimbabwe
• Spirit Mediums and Guerrilla Radio in the Zimbabwe War of Liberation
• Zapu’s “Voice of the Revolution” and the Radicalization of the Nationalist Struggle
• Reminiscences of Zimbabwe’s War Radio Broadcasters
• SWAPO’s Voice of Namibia as an Instrument of Diplomacy
• The Struggle for the Airwaves in South Africa
• Radio Freedom, Black Consciousness, and the Struggle for Liberation in South Africa
• International Solidarity and Support for the ANC’s Radio Freedom
• In Search of PAC Footprints in Broadcasting
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• About the Authors