TO MOST white South Africans, Soweto, if they thought about it at all, was just a great sprawling black township south-west nesburg. Its one-and-a-quarter million inhabitants were there to supply white-owned industry with an abundance of cheap labour and domestic servants for the whites in their luxurious flats and houses.
All this changed in one day. On 16 June 1976 Soweto not only impinged itself in the minds OI Africa, it thrust itself violently on to the front pages of newspapers all over the It all began relatively peacefully. On the morning of Wednesday 16 June 1976, 20,000 Soweto marched in protest against the decree by the South Atrican Department of Bantu Education that henceforth Afrikaans had to be used as one of the languages of instruction in secondary schools. To the black people language OT their oppressor, Afrikaner nationalists whose party had codified racist discrimination in the series of legislative which constitutes apartheid.
Newspaper photographs and eyewitness accounts testify that the marchine students were good-humoured, high spirited and excited. carrying placards with slogans such as Down with Afrikaans'; Boers'; *Afrikaans Language'; 'If we must do Afrikaans, Vorster must do Zulu'; 'Viva Azania!' Violence began who had raced to the scene in their armoured vehicles, seized placards and aned to stop the march. Inev responaed to the taunting of the students with A shot rang out; a thirteenLalsas. year old schoolboy, lay dead on the ground. no oraer trom tne ponce lor uie latchers to disperse, no Hector Petersen was killed by a bullet in his back. Several other youths were also shot dead. All hell broke loose! Revolution A cascade of stones pelted down on the police vehicles; a black policeman was dragged from his and his own handcuffs secured his wrists. Police dogs were knifed and set alight. The Soweto revolt had begun!
The fury of the students turned first against the West Rand Bantu Affairs Board Soweto UlE behalf Department of Bantu Administration Development (BAD). belonging to the Board were burnt and nearly all its offices in the township destroyed. Commercial vehicles delivery vans of white-owned business were also set on fire.
Soon Beerhalls, bank, a hotel, several post offices — all symbols of white rule Two white officials of BAD were hacked to death. Cries of 'Black Power' rent he air.
There was no holding the enraged students, They surged through Soweto with their objective destroy all symbols of state power. As Barusch Hirschon in his analysis of the revolt, Year of Fire, Year of Ash put it; if it was not a 'rehearsal for revolution' it was awareness that had grown out of the increasing tempo of clashes preceding months'. By the end of the week the death toll reached 176.
If this was not yet a revolution, or a rehearsal for a revolution the governICIl was nevertheless Schools were closed and arToured cars carrying were sent into soweto. The army, navy and airforce were alerted. Troops were mustered outside the township.
Socialist Action 1976 — the uprising which new form with the mass of Johan- emergence of the black trade of struggle is coupled with a forces.
traces the background to the white South schoolchildren government's the ruling They were Oppressors' belonging ine DONCC.
Hector Petersen, South Africa's white overlords There had been shaken and fearful.
warning shots.
ving Johannesburg, around breaks from more distant Nelspruit in the venice, beatel Transvaal, Bothaville in the Free State, Galeshewe near mond Nyanga in the Cape.
which ad- Mass of the Vehicles after the Soweto uprising, liquor stores, a legislative assembly were blazing. BophuthaTswana soldiers disturbance in that territory.
Lne participated township alone.
taking no anti-riot units rise union movement.
The high point of that struggle so far was the events in Soweto in marked the biggest confrontation yet between blacks and the naked violence of the apartheid police.
Since the experience of Soweto the struggie has developed in a union movement. That new rise debate of strategy, unity and the way forward among the liberation struggle in South Africa today.
in revolt Within a few days 143 vehicles (50 police) buildings (including 33 BAD buildings) had been damaged by fire or burnt out. A newspaper reporer who lcw over Soweto in a helicopter wrote that he 'felt like a war correspondent flying over a city after a bomb attack. As after Sharpville, sixteen years earlier, were The violence was not confined to Soweto. It was as if a, genie of pent-up fury had been released from a bottle.
From Mohlakeng in the west, to Daveyton in the east the townships seras well as those of Buyer leat Pretoria, were giving vent to their rage.
Soon reports were coming in of outplaces COSLCLI Transvaal, the south-westeri Orange the diaKimberley, Langa and Despite the reign of terror which the state unleashed, the violence continued and spread. By August, two months at least 80 black communities all over the countr were expressing their fury. Two months later 160 black areas were involved. The of the 'homeland' Mateking was burnt to the ground.
from a military base in the north of Namibia were called to quell a There can be no doubt that this was a mass struggle on a scale hitherto unknown in south Africa. In Soweto -which remained the centre of the revolt - and Cape Town tens of thousands were involved. Even if one accepts the official figure of BAD that 'only' about 20 per cent of Soweto's population had the protests, more than a quarter of a million in one the uprisings appeared spontaneous in character, it is obvious that the young militants of Soweto had been inspired by the ideas of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). But ing, thev nad also been intluenced ov the growth of the black trade Black miners in South Africa The combativity of the working class reinforced black militancy. These militants also increasingly realised that if they were to win they could not do so so be powell suppor could only come from the black working class.
Towards the end of July 1976 the students organised the first of a series of work bovcotts bv Soweto workers. On 23, 24 and 25 August there was a second stay-away from work. This time, the police, instead of directly intervenincited some migrant workers living in a hostel near Mzimhlope station in Soweto to attack students.
in stents nowever organised another three-day stay-away on September 13 September 1976 was also the month in which Henry Kissinger visited South which Africa to discuss the 'Rhodesian question'. His trip was a signal for a new outbreak protest in schools. He was greeted with a poster which read:
Azania is bullshit. angry.
By the end of July, could register a parmal victory edict making This did was modified. Schools were re-opened who and the attendance began slowly to intried to Square Johannesburg violence Wing the nesburg.
Rents Although ly the spark. unleashed on ICILL COC Urban The local Ten. the Soweto 'Kissinger, your visit to Even animals are birth-pangs the students 1905.
The of the Afrikaans compulsory crease. But many school buildings had been burned down by militants.
Although there was a short period of comparative calm, underneath the surface the revolt continued to simmer. On 4 August twenty-thousand students march the township through the centre of Johannesburg to the police headquarters in John Vorster On 23 September, pupils held a peaceful demonstration in the centre of on returned to Soweto. The catalyst for this new outbreak was the funeral of a schoolboy who had died in police custody after being arrested durJohanA large crowd of angry students destroyed thirty vehicles in a municipal depot. This was followed by attacks on the homes of black policemen The police responded with a raid on Morris Isaason High School - detaining 16 teachers and sixty-two pupils.
On 24 October seven people were killed when police opened fire on a funeral. That night the Jabulani police station in Soweto was damaged with explosives and there were more attacks on the homes of black policemen.
the language question was the immediate cause for the erup tion which was to shake South Africa for more than a year it was in reality onThe struggle which was 16 June 1976 encapsulated all the grievances against white rule which had accumulated over the years. Having achieved a measure of language Soweto students widened their cam pal Toward the end of April 1977 the students organised a march against the Imposed b the West Rand Administration Board. Rent is a perrenal issue mn me lownsnips. township administrations on behalf of Councils which the government have no authority to raise revenue through rates or taxes.
administrative incomes have to come solely from the municipal-owned houses in the townships, and when additional money is required this can only be raised by increasing rents.
The campaign against rent increases was one of the most successful organised by students. It led to the complete collanse ot the Urban Rantu Council the only civic body in Soweto officially recognised by the West Rand Board. In its place, the people set up their own authority interim committee commonly known as the Committee of The Committee of Ten was the most widely representative body to emerge in Soweto for years. If one wishes to draw paralleis, it can be compared to the first of Soviets In Kussia lI The committee had the support black the Sowero students Representative Coun cil which had been set up in the after-