Videos 1: the context for the new movement – early 1990s South Africa

The videos below are extracted from old VHS recordings of SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) TV news reports on university student and trade union struggles in 1994-1996. The aim of posting them is simply to help illustrate the context that shaped the (re-)emergent local anarchist/ syndicalist movement. These massive struggles were a decisive reference point for this current, demonstrating the power of the broad working class, and forcing the new new current to engage seriously with the issue of finding a road to the masses. An, of course, this context helped to radicalise many of those who gravitated to anarchism at this time — and helped to open space for a serious consideration of anarchism.

The political reforms of the early 1990s inspired a massive upsurge in strikes, protests and mobilisation, some high points of which were the massive general strike of 1991, and the 1993 insurrection against the Bophupatswana homeland dictatorship. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU) would continue with massive strikes into the late 1990s. Meanwhile, the formation of the South African Students Congress (SASCO) in 1991 was part of a huge wave of protests on university campuses which lasted until around 1998.

Video 1: 1994 – footage on university student protests in South Africa (SABC African language service)