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Publié par
Date de parution
01 juin 2016
Nombre de lectures
4
EAN13
9781868149902
Langue
English
Publié par
Date de parution
01 juin 2016
Nombre de lectures
4
EAN13
9781868149902
Langue
English
STUDENTS MUST RISE
Y OUTH S TRUGGLE IN S OUTH A FRICA B EFORE AND B EYOND S OWETO ’76
STUDENTS MUST RISE
Y OUTH S TRUGGLE IN S OUTH A FRICA B EFORE AND B EYOND S OWETO ’76
Edited by Anne Heffernan and Noor Nieftagodien
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
First published in South Africa in 2016
ISBN 978-1-86814-919-3 (print)
Text © Individual contributors 2016
Cover images: Soweto Uprising Collection, Wits Historical Papers Research Archive (top); © Anne Heffernan (bottom).
Images in Chapter 7: Soweto Uprising Collection, Wits Historical Papers Research Archive.
Excerpt from ‘A poem for Jose Campos Torres’ by Gil Scott-Heron reproduced with permission, Gil Scott-Heron Estate and Canongate.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
Project management: Hazel Cuthbertson
Copy editing: Hazel Cuthbertson and Judith Marsden
Proofreading: Judith Marsden
Printed by ABC Press
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is a collaborative project between the authors, the editors, the History Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) Trust. It arose out of a desire to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, and to use that moment to engage critically with the long and deep history of student and youth activism in South Africa. These issues are central to the academic and organisational concerns of the project partners.
The History Workshop represents over 30 years of primarily community-driven South African social history. Through community collaboration and academic research, the History Workshop focuses on histories of people and communities largely left out of broader South African history, and ensures that the histories and materials generated through this are accessible to the people whose lives and spaces they are about.
The SOMAFCO Trust is a South African youth development organisation that draws its inspiration from the history of SOMAFCO, a college which was established by the African National Congress (ANC) in Tanzania with the support of the international solidarity movement during the apartheid years. Today the Trust works to foster education and entrepreneurial development among South Africa’s youth.
These two organisations partnered with the scholars and activists whose work is represented here to produce a volume that addresses some of the hidden histories of student struggle over the last sixty years, and to open these histories to as wide an audience as possible. It is a book that, we hope, will be a resource for today’s students, and for those in generations to come. Education and access are tenets at the core of the work of both the History Workshop and the SOMAFCO Trust, and thanks to financial support from the National Lotteries Commission and the National Heritage Council we aim to make this book accessible to secondary and tertiary students around South Africa.
Anne Heffernan, April 2016
C ONTENTS
TIMELINE
MAP OF SOUTH AFRICA
GLOSARY
ABBREVIATIONS
INTRODUCTION: NARATIVES OF THE STUDENT STRUGLE
A NNE H EFFERNAN AND N OOR N IEFTAGODIEN
CHAPTER 1: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN STUDENTS’ ASOCIATION
S IFISO M XOLISI N DLOVU
CHAPTER 2: YOUTH AND STUDENT CULTURE
Riding resistance and imagining the future
B HEKIZIZWE P ETERSON
CHAPTER 3: THE ROLE OF RELIGION AND THEOLOGY IN THE ORGANISATION OF STUDENT ACTIVISTS
I AN M ACQUEEN
CHAPTER 4: STUDENT ORGANISATION IN LEHURUTSHE AND THE IMPACT OF ONKGOPOTSE ABRAM TIRO
A RIANNA L ISSONI
CHAPTER 5: THE UNIVERSITY OF THE NORTH
A regional and national centre of activism
A NNE H EFFERNAN
CHAPTER 6: ACTION AND FIRE IN SOWETO, JUNE 1976
S IBONGILE M KHABELA
CHAPTER 7: WHAT they SHOT IN ALEX
S TEVE K WENA M OKWENA
CHAPTER 8: SASO AND BLACK CONSCIOUSNES, AND THE SHIFT TO CONGRESS POLITICS
S ALEEM B ADAT
CHAPTER 9: YOUTH POLITICS AND RURAL REBELLION IN ZEBEDIELA AND OTHER PARTS OF THE “HOMELAND” OF LEBOWA, 1976–1977
S EKIBAKIBA P ETER L EKGOATHI
CHAPTER 10: MY JOURNEY, OUR JOURNEY
Activism at Ongoye University
M AKHOSAZANA X ABA
CHAPTER 11: ‘LET’S BEGIN TO PARTICIPATE FULLY NOW IN POLITICS’
Student politics, Mhluzi township, 1970s
T SHEPO M OLOI
CHAPTER 12: ‘THEY WOULD REMIND YOU OF 1960’
The emergence of radical student politics in the Vaal Triangle, 1972–1985
F RANZISKA R UEEDI
CHAPTER 13: THE ENDS OF BOYCOTT
P REMESH L ALU
CHAPTER 14: FIGHTING FOR ‘OUR LITTLE FREEDOMS’
The evolution of student and youth politics in Phomolong township, Free State
P HINDILE K UNENE
CHAPTER 15: ‘EVERY GENERATION HAS ITS STRUGGLE’
A brief history of Equal Education, 2008–15
B RAD B ROCKMAN
CHAPTER 16: CONTEMPORARY STUDENT POLITICS IN SOUTH AFRICA
The rise of the black-led student movements of #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall in 2015
L EIGH- A NN N AIDOO
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
T IMELINE 1910 South Africa becomes a union 1912 ANC founded 1913 The Natives Land Act (Act no 27) placed racial restrictions on land ownership by creating black reserves on 7% of the land and giving whites control of the remaining 93% 1916 Founding of University of Fort Hare, the first university for black students 1948 National Party comes to power 1950 Group Areas Act (also 1957 and 1966) 1953 Bantu Education Act 1955 Freedom Charter drawn up 1959 Extension of University Education Act 1960 Sharpeville Massacre; ANC and PAC banned 1961 Founding of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and African Students’ Association (ASA); South Africa becomes a republic 1963–64 Rivonia trialists arrested and tried 1968–69 South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) founded and launched 1972 Abram Tiro expelled from Turfloop 1974 Abram Tiro killed by a parcel bomb 1976 Soweto Uprising 1977 Steve Biko dies in police custody 1982 Koornhof Bills 1983 United Democratic Front (UDF) launched 1984–85 Vaal Triangle Uprising 1986 Pass Laws repealed 1990 ANC unbanned; Nelson Mandela freed from prison 1994 First democratic election in South Africa; ANC comes to power 2015–16 #RhodesMustFall; #FeesMustFall
M AP OF S OUTH A FRICA
After union in 1910 there were four provinces in South Africa: Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal. During the 1970s and 1980s the government granted “independence” to some of the supposedly self-governing Bantustans (also known as “homelands”) that formed part of the apartheid-era administrative system of creating separate areas for blacks and whites. After the first democratic election in South Africa in 1994, these areas were reincorporated and nine new provinces were proclaimed: Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, North West, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo.
The names of some cities and towns are being changed in an ongoing process of transformation.
GLOSSARY
Afrikaans Language that evolved from Dutch among settlers in southern Africa during the nineteenth century, and the mother tongue of most apartheid era politicians; still one of South Africa’s eleven official languages.
Afrikaans as a medium of instruction Policy imposed on some urban black schools during the mid-1970s by the Department of Bantu Education, requiring that students be taught many core subjects (Maths, Science, Agriculture) in Afrikaans rather than English or a mother tongue.
assegai Traditional southern African spear.
banning order Restrictions on movement (often effectively house arrest), political activities and associations imposed on opponents of the apartheid government.
Bantu Term used in colonial and apartheid South Africa to describe a black African person; from the Bantu language group.
Bantu Education Act, 1953 Act of parliament under which black scholars and students were educated separately from white scholars and students.
Bantustans Ethnically segregated, ostensibly independent and self-governing political entities that nonetheless were contained within the borders of South Africa (including Transkei, Ciskei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, Lebowa, Gazankulu, KwaZulu, QwaQwa, KaNgwane).
Black Consciousness (BC) Philosophy of psychological liberation for black people in South Africa, developed by Steve Biko and other members of the South African Students’ Organisation, which drew heavily on Pan-African and anti-colonial theorists like Frantz Fanon. BC takes black not as a strict racial category, but includes all groups that were oppressed under apartheid (blacks, coloureds, and Indians).
Black Theology Theological project under the wing of Black Consciousness and radical Christian activists that draws heavily on Liberation Theology from South America.
Boers Afrikaans term for farmers; often used collectively (and sometimes pejoratively) for whites.
bogoši Chieftainship or traditional leadership (Sepedi).
born frees The generation(s) of South Africans born after 1994, the legal end of apartheid.
bucket system Waste collection method used in the absence of municipal sewage infrastructure.
bush colleges Pejorative term for the ethnically segregated universities and colleges in South Africa’s rural (“bush”) areas, including Turfloop, Ngoye, Fort Hare, and many agricultural and technical colleges.
Cillie Commission Government commission of enquiry appointed to investigate the events of 16 June 1976 (and subsequent related events), led by Justice Petrus Malan Cillie. The commission sat for eight months in 1976 and 1977, and took testimony from more than 500 people.
coconut Pejorative, racist slang term for a black person who “acts white”.
coloured Racial category in South Africa that describes someone from historically mixed races; includes descendants of indige