EXCLUSIVE: The ACCIDENTAL tool of apartheid. Fifty years ago, the National Party FINALLY unleashed television upon South Africa—not as a beacon of freedom, but as a DESPERATE, last-ditch mechanism for CONTROL. Newly unearthed revelations expose how the regime weaponized the airwaves from DAY ONE, using smiling faces like Heinrich Marnitz and Dorianne Berry as PROPAGANDA puppets in a sinister plot to pacify a nation on the brink.
Forget everything you’ve been told about TV’s “unifying” power. While the rest of Africa enjoyed television for DECADES, South Africans were deliberately kept in the DARK by paranoid apartheid ministers who called the television set “the devil’s own box.” Their fear? That ONE BROADCAST could shatter their racist fantasy. And they were RIGHT.
The shocking truth is that the SABC’s launch was a CALCULATED act of cultural warfare. The government, terrified of losing its stranglehold, hijacked the technology to push Afrikaans, whitewash the news, and maintain its GRIP on reality. The first broadcast wasn’t entertainment—it was a STATE-SANCTIONED PSYOP.
Even the so-called “pioneers” were kept in the dark. Dorianne Berry admits she didn’t grasp the “power of the camera,” while Marnitz confesses he only got “goosebumps” years later realizing he was a pawn in a historic manipulation. Meanwhile, the regime censored news, controlled language, and filtered every image to serve its twisted agenda.
This is the UGLY, UNTOLD story of how a tool of global connection was perverted into an instrument of division. For every “unifying” rugby match broadcast, there were a thousand moments of SUPPRESSED TRUTH. The box that was meant to open minds was, for years, just another lock on the prison of apartheid ideology.
As we celebrate 50 years of television, we must ask the DISTURBING question: Are we still watching what they WANT us to see, and have we ever truly switched on?
Author: Kayitsi.com
