The 16th
of June marks Youth Day in South Africa.
Here is an article
by Lucille Davie which tells the story of the history of Youth Day:
16 June 1976: 'This is our
day'
Lucille Davie
“It is a day
violently etched on the South African collective conscience. Commemorated over
30 years later as Youth Day, an official holiday, it is the day that honours
the deaths of hundreds of Soweto schoolchildren, a day that changed the course
of the country's history: 16 June 1976.
On that day the
government and the police were caught off guard, when the simmering bubble of
anger of schoolchildren finally burst, releasing an intensity of emotion that
the police controlled in the only manner they knew how: with ruthless
aggression. SA History Online puts the number of dead at 200, far higher than
the official figure of 23.
Bantu education
was introduced by the National Party in 1954. Before that blacks either didn't
go to school or were educated in missionary schools, which fell away with the
new system. Many more children were enrolled and the existing schools became
extremely overcrowded – with class sizes of some 60 children – and the quality
of the education declined.
Fewer than 10% of
black teachers had a matric certificate in 1961, according to Philip Bonner and
Lauren Segal in Soweto, A History. The schools were poorly equipped, with no
science laboratories or sports fields, and often no library. Many children
dropped out of school.
Introduction of Afrikaans
In 1976 the
government introduced the compulsory use of Afrikaans as a medium of
instruction from Grade 7 – then Standard 5. Circuit inspectors and principals
received the directive: "It has been decided that for the sake of
uniformity English and Afrikaans will be used as media of instruction in our
schools on a 50-50 basis."
What this meant
was that maths and social studies were to be taught in Afrikaans, while general
science and practical subjects such as housecraft and woodwork would be taught
in English.
Bonner and Segal
say one of the reasons for this ruling was that television was to be introduced
to South Africa in 1976, and "Afrikaans-speaking conservatives feared that
it would strengthen the position and status of English in the country".
It was also felt
that black school children were becoming too assertive and "forcing them
to learn in Afrikaans would be a useful form of discipline". Besides, the
government argued, it paid for black education, so it could determine the
language of instruction.
This was not
strictly true. White children had free schooling, but black parents had to pay
R51 – about half a month's salary – a year for each child, in addition to
buying textbooks and stationery and contributing to the costs of building
schools. The disparity in the government subsidy was telling: R644 was spent on
each white child, but only R42 on each black child.
Pupils, teachers
and principals opposed the ruling on Afrikaans, for more or less the same
reasons: teachers were ill-equipped to teach in the language, which was for
most a third language.
January 1976
When schools
reopened in January 1976, parents and principals were unhappy – some applied
for an exemption from teaching Afrikaans, saying their teachers were not
qualified. The World newspaper of March 5 reported: "Although most of the
school boards have capitulated to the medium of instruction directive from the
Department of Bantu Education, the teachers and principals are very
dissatisfied."
Tensions over
Afrikaans simmered in the following months. By June mid-year exams were
approaching and pupils were getting restless. At a meeting called by student
leaders on 13 June nearly 400 pupils turned up, and were addressed by
19-year-old Tsietsi Mashinini, "an extremely powerful speaker".
He suggested that
the following Wednesday – June 16 – pupils gather in a mass demonstration
against Afrikaans. The students decided not to tell their parents, for fear of
them upsetting the plan.
One pupil, Teboho
Mohapi, told Bonner and Segal that there was much anticipation for 16 June:
"They would just see us walking out of class and would try to stop us, and
we would tell them, 'Wait, this is our day.'"
16 June 1976
It was cold and
overcast as pupils gathered at schools across Soweto on 16 June. At an agreed
time, they set off for Orlando West Secondary School in Vilakazi Street, with
thousands streaming in from all directions. The planned to march from the
school to the Orlando Stadium.
"By 10.30am,
over 5 000 students had gathered on Vilakazi Street and more were arriving
every minute," say Bonner and Segal. In total, "over 15 000 uniformed
students between the ages of 10 and 20 [were] marching that day".
Once at the
stadium, the plan was to agree on a list of grievances, and then possibly to
march to the offices of the Transvaal department of education in Booysens, in
Johannesburg's southern suburbs.
But this didn't
happen. Police formed a wall facing the pupils, warning them to disperse – an
order met with resistance. Teargas was fired into the crowd and police dogs
released. In the chaos, children ran back and forth, throwing stones at the
police – who fired more teargas.
Bonner and Segal
quote a student leading the march, Jon-Jon Mkhonza: "Students were
scattered, running up and down ... coming back, running ... coming back. It was
some kind of game because they were running away, coming back, taking stones,
throwing them at the police ... It was chaos. Whenever the police shot teargas,
we jumped the wall to the churchyard and then came back and started discussing
again."
The first shot
Then came the
first shot – straight into the crowd, without warning. Other policemen took up
the signal and more shots were fired. Twelve-year-old Hector Pieterson fell to
the ground, fatally wounded. He was picked up by Mbuyisa Makhubo, a fellow
student, who ran with him towards the Phefeni Clinic, with Pieterson's crying
sister Antoinette running alongside.
The World
photographer Sam Nzima was there to record Pieterson's last moments. "I
saw a child fall down," he says. "Under a shower of bullets I rushed
forward and went for the picture."
The photo went
around the world and Pieterson came to symbolise the uprising, giving the world
an in-your-face view of the brutality of apartheid.
Then all hell
broke loose. Students targeted apartheid symbols: administrative offices,
government buses and vehicles and municipal beer halls, which were first looted
and then set alight. By the end of the day thick clouds of black smoke hung
over the township, and the streets were littered with upturned vehicles, stones
and rocks.
Anti-riot vehicles
poured into Soweto, roadblocks were erected at all entrances, the army was
placed on alert and helicopters hovered overhead, dropping teargas canisters
and shooting.
The injured pupils
were taken to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, some dying in its corridors,
some dying at its gates before they could be admitted, according to Bonner and
Segal.
As night fell, the
unlit township became even more terrifying: blinded by the night, police simply
fired into the blackness. The students returned the fire with their own
weapons: bottles and stones. The looted liquor was taking effect – people
wandered the streets intoxicated, in a celebratory mood, raising clenched fists
and shouting "Amandla!" (power).
The next day
revealed the carnage: dead bodies and burnt-out shops and vehicles. The clashes
continued, between police and students, joined by street gangs. Violence spread
to another volatile Johannesburg township, Alexandra, and then across South
Africa. By 18 June, all schools in Soweto and Alexandra had been closed by the
authorities.
Most of the
victims were under 23, say Bonner and Segal, and shot in the back. Many others
were left maimed or crippled. By the end of the year about 575 people had died
across the country, 451 at the hands of police, according to SA History Online.
The injured numbered 3 907, with the police responsible for 2 389 of them.
About 5 980 people were arrested in the townships that year.
The aftermath
International
solidarity movements were roused as an immediate consequence of the revolt.
They soon gave their support to the pupils, putting pressure on the apartheid
government to temper its repressive rule. This pressure was maintained
throughout the 1980s, until resistance movements were finally unbanned in 1990.
School principals
were almost immediately allowed to choose their own medium of instruction, a
major victory for the pupils. More schools and a teacher training college were
built in Soweto. Teachers were given in-service training and encouraged to
upgrade their qualifications by being given study grants.
The most
significant change, however, was that urban blacks were given permanent status
as city dwellers. They ceased to be temporary sojourners in the cities,
expected to return to the homelands, often inferior pieces of land far away
from industrial centres and jobs, where they held permanent residence.
The law banning
blacks from owning businesses in the townships was abolished. Doctors, lawyers
and other professionals were now also allowed to practise in the townships.
But there was a
sting in the tail of these measures: the police were given powers to detain
people without trial. The result was the detention of hundreds of people in the
coming months. They were subjected to torture in a desire to confirm the
government's version of events: that the unrest was caused by a number of
agitators.
And thousands of
young people left the country, disillusioned with the government crackdown and
harassed by the police. They never finished their education, choosing instead
to go into military camps and receive training. Some were then infiltrated back
into South Africa over the next decade, to perpetrate acts of sabotage. This
was part of the steady onslaught against apartheid that finally broke its back
towards the end of the 1980s.
Most of the exiles
returned home in the early 1990s, to celebrate the birth of democracy in 1994.
Lest we forget the
day, there is a museum to keep the memories fresh. The Hector Pieterson Museum,
in Orlando West in Soweto, is just a few blocks from where students and police
first began their violent confrontation.”
Article first
published on SouthAfrica.info on 15 June 2006
http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/soweto-150606.htm#.VX6d4ROqpBc
The man who took
the iconic photograph was Sam Nzima.
