Beating (Beyond) Apartheid

Input by Eric Otieno Sumba, followed by a discussion with Shivangi Mariam Raj and Erin Honeycutt, moderated by Lucie Kolb and Jonas von Lenthe.

South Africa’s DRUM Magazine, founded in 1951, was reaching an unprecedented 73,657 buyers by 1955, making it Africa’s most widely circulated magazine in any language. In its prime, each issue was passed on to up to 9 others on the streets, in the clubs or on the trains, leaving an indelible imprint with a winning mix of investigative features, serialized fiction, mild, scandalised erotica, and compelling images from pioneering photographers which showed life as it was amidst the propaganda of the apartheid regime. After ten years of sustained state repression, the magazine was banned between 1965 and 1968 but was revived and had another moment in the late 1980s before its steady decline, and ultimate conversion into a human-interest online magazine (and pathetic shadow of its former self) in 2020. DRUM’s back issues remain a powerful reminder that political print publications can circulate widely and mobilize masses. In moment of renewed political repression and receding political freedoms, this contribution questions the role of publishing practices in the context of political adversity and repression amid an entirely transformed publication landscape.