South African blacks consider June 16, 1976, a crucial date in the struggle against apartheid.
On
that day, 20,000 schoolchildren in Soweto, a black township outside
Johannesburg, joined in a march to protest mandatory school use of
Afrikaans, the language of the Afrikaner whites who are descended from
the original Dutch settlers; the nation's other official language is
English.
On
their way to a sports stadium, the Soweto marchers were confronted by
the police. The children hurled stones, shots were fired, and
13-year-old Hector Petersen fell to the ground. A photograph of the boy
being carried away was published throughout the world.
By
late afternoon, schools, shops and government buildings were in flames
throughout Soweto. The police sealed off the township, but rioting soon
engulfed other black townships outside Johannesburg.
Within
four months, violence spread to 160 black townships across South
Africa. The focus shifted from schooling to general opposition to white
rule.
Nationwide
violence continued until April 1977. A Commission of Inquiry said 575
people were killed, 451 by the police. Opposition sources say the true
figure is more than 1,000. The panel put the number of injured at 3,907,
2,389 of them wounded by the police.
Many
black students fled South Africa and made their way to the headquarters
of the African National Congress, a rebel organization with
headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia.
As
for the initial impetus of the riots, the use of Afrikaans in the black
schools, the Government later decided to leave the choice of the
language of instruction up to each school. Afrikaans remains mandatory
for students who want to go on to college.
South
African students attend an event in Johannesburg ahead of the fortieth
anniversary of the Soweto uprising on June 15. Hundreds of students were
killed in the uprising as they protested against the use of Afrikaans
as a teaching language in black schools.MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP/Getty Images
Forty years ago, the streets of the Soweto township in South Africa’s economic capital Johannesburg turned bloody.
Thousands
of mostly black students lined the streets, refusing to go to school
until a controversial law ordering that lessons be taught in Afrikaans, a
language deeply associated with the racist apartheid regime
eventually abolished in 1994. The student protesters were met with
deadly force by police and photos of the clashes became emblematic of
the struggle of black South Africans for equal rights.
As the
country marks the anniversary of what is known as the Soweto
Uprising—which has now been designated a national holiday, Youth
Day—here are five things you should know about an event that left an
indelible mark on South Africa’s history.
1. Afrikaans was the trigger
In
1974, South Africa’s apartheid government—led at the time by Prime
Minister B.J. Vorster—passed the Afrikaans Medium Decree, which stated
that all black schools must use a 50-50 mixture of English and Afrikaans
in lessons. Afrikaans was designated as the sole language for certain
subjects, including mathematics and social studies.
The decree was
decried by black schools and teachers’ associations on the practical
basis that many black children did not speak the language, making
pedagogy much more difficult. On a more symbolic level, however,
Afrikaans was seen as the “language of the oppressor,” as described by Desmond Tutu—it was the language of the apartheid government and was heavily associated with the system of white-minority rule.
2. Tens of thousands of students took to the streets
A
series of smaller protests against the Afrikaans directive had already
taken place ahead of June 16, when black students gathered to march from
their schools in Soweto to the nearby Orlando Stadium. Estimates of the
number of students involved that day range between 10,000 and 20,000,
and the demonstrations were backed by anti-apartheid groups such as the
grassroots activist Black Consciousness Movement. The students were
confronted by armed police blocking their route and the protests soon
descended into violence, with police firing live rounds at the gathered
children and teenagers.
Protesters are pictured during the Soweto Uprising, South Africa, June
21, 1976. The protests were sparked by the South African government
ordering black schools to teach certain subjects in Afrikaans. Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
3. The death toll is disputed
South
African police gave the official death toll from June 16, 1976 as 23,
though this is widely disputed and others have estimated hundreds of
casualties—the government-appointed Cillié Commission of Inquiry put the death toll
at 575 in September 1976, blaming police for the majority of
casualties. The protests rolled into a second day as students and police
clashed again, with pupils stoning cars driving through Soweto and
police helicopters deployed to monitor the situation. The United Nations
Security Council was urgently convened and denounced the
South African government for “its resort to massive violence against
and killings of the African people including schoolchildren and students
and others opposing racial discrimination.”
4. One photo came to symbolize the uprising
Though
many children perished in the violence of the Soweto uprising, the
image of 18-year-old Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying the limp and blood-stained body of Hector Pieterson,
12, served as the touchstone for international outrage at the
crackdown. Pieterson is believed to have been one of the first children
killed in the violence and a memorial and museum in his name was
established in the Orlando West suburb of Soweto in 2002. The memorial
commemorates the victims of the Soweto uprising and South African
politicians laid wreaths there on Thursday to mark the anniversary.
Children from Soweto stand at the Hector Pieterson Memorial in Soweto,
South Africa, June 16, 2013. The image of Pieterson became emblematic of
the violence in which hundreds of students were killed. MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP/Getty Images
The
image was taken by local photographer Sam Nzima, who was punished with
19 months of house arrest following the publication of the image.
According to Nzima, U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton once
tried to buy the camera he used to take the photo, but the offer was
rebuffed by the former wife of Nelson Mandela, Winnie
Madikizela-Mandela. “Winnie Mandela said no. She said, ‘This camera
belongs to South Africa, it is the property of our country. We cannot
allow it to go to America.’ And that was the end of the story,” said
Nzima.
5. It was a turning point in the struggle against apartheid
While
it would be another 14 years before Nelson Mandela was released from
prison—and another four years after that before the apartheid regime was
finally overthrown—the Soweto uprising was an important moment in the
struggle of black South Africans for equal rights. The protests, which
rolled on for months after June 16, garnered international attention—the
uprising was immortalized in numerous books and films, including the
Richard Attenborough-directed Cry Freedom—and ultimately achieved its
goal, with the South African government reversing the Afrikaans decree
in July 1976.
