Agitprop, Part 7a
January 2013
ANC Rally
Seminars,
Public Meetings, Rallies and Conferences
This item is about public
gatherings initiated by your organisation. From the small to the large these
are gatherings of people who are invited to attend, whether individually or by
a general announcement.
For an additional text we
will use the final parts of “Mr Chairman”, by Wal Hannington, a British
communist, organiser and author. The book was first published in 1950. Although
it is distant from us in place and time, yet it can help us to think about some
of these things.
Let us look at how these
things can be conceived in general, and then separately, and then with South
African characteristics.
All of these events fall
within what we are calling Agitprop. They are ways and means at different
scales, and with some variation of form, for propagating ideas in a fuller and
more detailed way, to larger numbers of people. Of course, they have a
“message”, which is more or less pre-formed in the various different cases.
Sometimes we are closer to “preaching”, and sometimes purposefully “listening”.
Seminars
Seminars are no different
from what we do in the Communist University. A Seminar is an open-ended
discussion where “no-one is right and no-one is wrong”, apart from the normal
discipline of the chairperson, which rests in turn upon the self-discipline of
the meeting.
In a seminar, the
chairperson’s job is to protect speakers, to encourage as many as possible to
speak, and to keep the meeting on-topic, but not to force any kind of
conclusion.
In a seminar, the platform
does not dominate and the initial speaker, who “opens the discussion”, should
not use more than a quarter of the time, and preferably even less than that.
Twenty minutes might be an ideal upper limit. A physical platform is not
required in a seminar, and the best arrangement of seating is an oval or a
circle, as in a boardroom or a council chamber. Seminars can be very small, but
also can be quite large. A seminar of 100 or even 200 is not impossible. Time
used in a seminar might be from one and a half hours to two and half hours from
start to finish.
“Seminars” that are not seminars
In South Africa, it is
sometimes the case that organisations will hold a public event and call it a
“seminar”, when it is not a seminar. This would usually be an event that has a
prior intention of endorsing a certain outcome, and where there may be several
speakers on a definite platform, speaking one after another and together using
up most of the time. In these circumstances, if the chairperson is going to ask
for contributions from the floor, they can only in effect be questions of
clarity, suggestions, and very minor amendments to the matter being presented.
The conclusion of such a meeting will be some kind of adoption of the position
laid down by the speakers, which may have the form of a document or a declaration.
Such meetings take a very
similar form to press conferences. They are more like Wal Hannington’s category
4, “For obtaining public opinion by resolution in support of a certain project”,
or in other words, a “launch”.
Consultative meetings
The SACP, when preparing a
campaign, has quite often in the past held invited meetings that have mainly
consisted of representatives of organisations that would have an interest in
such a campaign. These meetings are not quite a public launch, and yet they are
more driven and directed than a pure seminar would be. They are held so as to
canvass opinion and to assist in drafting a campaigning platform that will unite
the broadest number of organisations and interests, after which the Party would
run the campaign. In rare cases a special purpose vehicle or in other words a
new mass movement might be set up, if such an organisation had a good chance of
being sustained over time.
Public Meetings
The term “Public Meeting” is
on the face of it a general term, but it usually means the kind that Wal
Hannington gives as his category 1, being “for demonstration and propaganda
purposes only”. Such public meetings are used to spread a message, and to
introduce personalities to the public. Public meetings are held at election
times in South Africa, and also, for another example, by local police and other
authorities when they want to address the population.
Mass Rallies
Mass Rallies usually take
place in stadiums. Typical in South Africa are the “Siyanqoba” Rallies that are
held in all provinces at the end of the ANC’s election campaigns. Another
example would be the January 2013 rally that was held in Durban to mark the end
of the 100th Centenary year of the ANC (see the illustration above).
These rallies are Agitprop on
a big scale. They involve huge organisation and mobilisation, very large
numbers of buses, and sometimes overflow provisions in second stadia, with
electronic relay using large screens. These are whole-day commitments by the
masses who attend them. There is usually entertainment of a political kind as a
warm-up, and everything is done to create a good atmosphere.
The main speaker will be a
principle leader of the organisation, such as President Zuma, above, preceded
by, in South Africa, leaders of the Alliance including the SACP, COSATU and
SANCO, and the Leagues and MK veterans.
A good public address system
is crucial.
Conferences
Conferences are also covered
in Wal Hannington’s book and we have included that part of the book in the
attached discussion text. For our purposes, conferences may be taken as being of
two kinds.
In the first place there are
the constitutional conferences of organisations, including the SACP, ANC and
COSATU-affiliated unions, held in conformity with their respective
constitutions and for the purpose of making decisions about policy and about
leadership succession. Those conferences have their place within the field of
Agitprop. Their results have to be widely pronounced and will constantly be
referred to, afterwards.
There are also conferences
that are convened by broad invitation. These ones are like seminars, but on a
larger scale, and are perhaps spread over one or more whole days.
Logistics, organisation and finance for Rallies and
Conferences
We have looked briefly at
Event Management in part 6 of the Induction course.
In both cases the date must
be fixed far in advance. Finance must be arranged, and a venue selected. Especially
in the case of rallies, the local authorities will have to be contacted early
so that all the terms of compliance can be fulfilled in time for the event.
These can be elaborate. The local authority will guide as to what will be
required. In the case of conferences, the conference venue should have all of
the compliance under control – but this is something that you need to check.
Accommodation and catering
have to be laid on for everyone you are responsible for, and found available
for all of the others.
·
The above is to
introduce part of our reading-text: Public Meetings, Wal
Hannington, 1950.
