ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how the connection between global economic power and local political power weakened the South African state and fragmented the ANC, dividing it on both personal and ideological levels. In the end, these fragmentations, political interference, and the weakening of professional values led to a reconfiguration of the SABC’s role and identity, which, in turn, influenced the ways in which ‘independence’ is understood. The rise of anti-state and anti-Keynesian ideologies saw a rise in the belief in free enterprise, and these two positions continue to inform respondents’ perspectives on the role of the SABC in post-apartheid South Africa. A situation arose in which politicians supported the profit-making enterprise for personal aggrandisement and consolidation of power, since power gave access to material resources.
