Agitprop, Part 5a
Umkhonto we Sizwe Toyi Toyi
Dance
Use of dance as a means of Agitprop is a South African
characteristic.
It is often said, for example, that South Africa is the only
place where striking workers dance as a means of protest. Whether or not it is
the only place, yet it is true that this happens in South Africa and that a
strike without any “toyi-toying” is a rare thing in SA, such that the words
“toyi-toyi” and “strike” are interchangeable in some South African contexts.
When demonstrators dance, they are marshalled and kept to a
pace and kept tight in formation.
The effect altogether is to magnify the impact of any
demonstration as compared to the strolling, loose crowd that is typical of
European “marches”, which rely mainly on size for impact.
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