The year 2024 marks South Africa’s 30 years cycles into democracy. Given the fraught history of our apartheid past, our journey round and round the hoops of this new dispensation has had some colourful twists and turns.
Working as a creative consultant at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), I already knew a year prior that the national broadcaster would bear the responsibility to help our citizenry reflect on SA’s 30 years’ progress. When the sales teams briefed me in early 2023 to put together ideas for how we can do this with the Government Communication Information System (GCIS), I was delighted to put together a plan. In September 2023 we presented the plan to one of GCIS’s Deputy Directors General Rego Mavimbela and her team, and they loved it – even though I told them we are not the mouthpiece of government, to much chuckles in the room.
The SABC, as the national broadcaster, is a gateway to South Africa’s fragmented demographic landscape. We have told the story of the birth of a new South Africa and have been part of the journey of its ups and downs. From inception, when Madiba walked free after 27 years of imprisonment out of Victor Verster hand in hand with Winnie Mandela, to those rousing ‘welcome home’ meetings at the DF Malan Airport and Jan Smuts Airport with the unbanning of liberation movements, to the Boipatong and Bhisho massacres, the brutal murder of Chris Hani, the 1992 Referendum, the CODESA negotiations, the collapse of Bophuthatswana and other Bantustans, to the first democratic elections in 1994 when Vodacom and MTN first launched their network coverage blowing the winds of change across the country. We were there, affirming the hopes of the nation with our slogan Simunye – ‘we are one.’ When the wave of Kwaito permeated the township streets and many a youngsters got their opportunity for fame and stardom.
Many South Africans will remember the moment when Basetsana Makgalemele became Miss South Africa in 1994 and soon presenter of Top Billing (used to air on SABC 3). This was a time when euphoria was thick in the air and we became world Rugby champions in 1995, when our world-renowned Constitution was ratified in 1996 with that seminal, poetic ‘I Am an African’ speech by Deputy President Mbeki. Followed by our continental victory at AFCON ’96 leading us to the France 1998 world cup. Joe Mafela’s ‘Siyaya eFrance’ still rings in our ears.
And new seeds of hope started to germinate; our government would then bid for the 2006 soccer world cup, only to do so successfully for the 2010 world cup. To conglomerate the world for this prestigious occasion on the African shores for the very first time. We’ve been there through it all, from the beginnings of electricity load-shedding, to when Cape Town became world design city of the year. We have traversed this journey with many brands; Capitec for its buzzworthy launch on Generations (a soapie on SABC 1), the Telkom ‘Molo Mhlobo Wam’ ad first seen on SABC, like those iconic Castle Lager ads that first introduced multi-ethnic characters as friends after a racially divided apartheid past, where we could not coalesce along racial lines.
This is our story. That is what the national broadcaster has been about, and I wanted the SABC to be at the forefront of capturing the 30-year review of South Africa and what the future looks like, especially in the context of the 2024 National General Elections. Our coverage of the elections and other stories was spectacular, and I’m pleased to have partly steered the direction we had to take.
Mohau Bosiu 