ABSTRACT
This article is about the history of Radio Ndebele, the last of the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) African language stations that was established in the dying days of apartheid in the early 1980s. The article explores the role of the state and radio broadcasting in the crystallisation of Ndebele ethnic consciousness and probes more deeply the agency of the Ndebele-speaking broadcasters in aiding or hindering ethnic separatism. Using both archival (written and audio) sources and oral interviews, I argue that though this modern technology of communication played a major role as a channel of apartheid propaganda, Radio Ndebele flourished because firstly, it met its listeners’ desire for broadcasting in their own language, using native speakers; and secondly, the channel came to serve as a medium for ethnic mobilisation as well as for the reinvention of Ndebele traditions, culture and identity. The station played a major role in turning the spoken language into a written form. Indeed, Radio Ndebele, as well as the entire apartheid language planning project, gave a linguistic preservation impetus and the broadcasters and their audiences had a great deal of agency in the enterprise.
