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JUNE 16 1976, BACKGROUND AND
AFTERMATH
The eruption of student
uprisings in June 1976 has to be seen in its proper
perspective.
Today, organisations and individuals have claimed
responsibility for the uprising. However, events prior
to June 16, 1976 will show that no one other than the
students themselves, under the leadership of the South
African Student’s Movement (SASM), can claim
responsibility. To this end, we will look at events
prior to the day in terms of :
* Political trends obtaining at that time.
* The Afrikaans Issue
* The aftermath
POLITICAL TRENDS
From its inception, the South African Students’
Organisation ( SASO) and thus the Black Consciousness
philosophy, had maintained that it recognised the
historical existence of other liberation movements.
Thus, Black Consciousness ( B.C.) did not see itself as
an alternative to them but recognised its role in
liberating the Black people of Azania. Emphasis was
initially placed on the psychological liberation, which
was the driving force behind the student uprisings of
1976.
All Black organisations that were operating above board
in that period were doing so under the broad banner of
B.C. - there was this common understanding and approach
to the liberation of the country. Even organisations
such as the Inkatha Cultural Movement, which were at
odds with the B.C.M. on a number of issues - such as
operating within the Bantustan system, were appreciative
of B.C.
Thus prior to 1976, the Black community did not have the
political cleavages currently obtaining. Consultations
were held across known political affiliations.
Therefore, the Black People’s Convention (B.P.C.), could
easily consult with the known members of the other
organisations. Co-operation and consultation were in all
events the norm.
THE AFRIKAANS ISSUE
If there is anybody who could claim responsibility for
the June 16 1976 Uprisings, it could be Dr Andries
Treurnicht, who was then the Deputy Minister in the
Department of Bantu Administration, Development and
Education in charge of Bantu Education, under Minister
M.C. Botha. His Memorandum to School Boards, Inspectors
and Principals instructing them to use Afrikaans as a
medium of instruction was the direct cause of the
unrest.
The first group to respond to these instructions was the
Tswana School Boards. As early as January 1976, these
school boards in Meadowlands, Dobsonville and other
areas under the Tswana School Boards had taken an
attitude towards this instruction. An excerpt from the
minutes of the Meadowlands Tswana School Board of the 20
January 1976 is instructive :
“ The circuit inspector told the board that the
Secretary for Bantu Education has stated that all direct
taxes paid by the Black population of South Africa are
being sent to the various homelands for educational
purposes there.
“In urban areas the education of a Black child is being
paid for by the White population, that is English and
Afrikaans speaking groups. Therefore the Secretary for
the Bantu Education has the responsibility of satisfying
the English and Afrikaans speaking people. Consequently,
as the only way of satisfying both groups, the medium of
instruction in all schools shall be on a 50-50 basis....
In future, if schools teach through a medium not
prescribed by the department for a particular subject,
examination question papers will only be set in the
medium with no option of the other language”.
The objection of the Tswana school boards was that the
control of their school boards had shifted to the
Bophuthatswana government in terms of government
legislation and that the central government no longer
had any jurisdiction on them.
The B.P.C., through its Secretary General, Thandisizwe
Mazibuko, participated in all meetings called by the
Tswana School Board, together with Thomas Manthata in
his capacity as an official of the South African Council
of Churches. As a matter of fact, at the time of the
outbreak of the unrest, the B.P.C. and the Tswana School
Board had engaged services of a lawyer to work on an
interdict against the Minister.
In the meantime, the students in SOWETO had formed the
Student Representative Council
( S.R.C.) And were involved in consultations with all
organisations and individuals of note in the community.
The B.P.C. was in a better position to liaise with the
SRC in that some members of the organisation had been
teachers in some of the SOWETO High Schools like Sekano
Ntoane, Naledi and Orlando West High. People like Tom
Manthata, Sammy Tloubatla and Aubrey Mokoena were active
members of B.P.C.
It must however be made very clear that the planning of
the March was left to the students. Advice was given
where sought. The week-end before the fateful June 16
day, a meeting was held between the students and members
of the B.P.C. to finalise the strategy for the march.
Earlier it was mentioned that the cornerstone of the
B.C. philosophy was psychological liberation. The
Afrikaans issue was seen by the students and the
community at large as part of a strategy by the National
Party to oppress Black people psychologically. Thus,
ways and means had to be found to counter this threat.
The war of psychological liberation was therefore
imminent.
AFTERMATH
It is ironic that the first among the known political
activists of the day to be arrested was George Wauchope,
who was the Chairman of the Johannesburg Central Branch
of the B.P.C.
Magauta Molefe, Administrative Secretary at the Head
Office of the B.P.C., followed. By the end of July 1976
almost all active members of the B.P.C. in Johannesburg
had been detained, including the President, Hlaku
Rachidi and the Secretary General, Thandisizwe Mazibuko.
It is of interest to note that the Soviet KGB sent one
their agents, Major Koslov, to investigate claims by
some externally based organisation that they were
responsible for the uprising. This officer, who was
arrested by the Boers, reported unfavourably on their
involvement in this national uprising.
The flood of young people into exile after the uprisings
served as a serious indictment on all the liberation
movements. The fact is that prior to June 1976, there
wasn’t enough pressure exerted on the South African
regime militarily either because the organisations
lacked the capacity or the political will to do so. Let
the matter rest here.
The formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF),
which the B.C. camp aptly named Uniroyal, Dunlop and
Firestone after the tyre companies because of the number
of necklace murders they carried out against anybody
that disagreed with them or presented better arguments
to theirs, was an effort on part of one of these
organisations to show a presence in the country.
The wars between the UDF and AZAPO are history. However,
things have to be put in their proper perspective. In
1978 at the Modder Bee Prison where most activists were
imprisoned after the banning of the B.C. organisations,
some turn coats, as one would expect them, went all out
to attack the B.P.C. and the Black Consciousness
Philosophy. This came as a result of a Radio Freedom
broadcast which condemned the Committee of Ten -
forerunner to today’s civic movement in the country -
and thus the B.P.C. as “sell-outs” who deserved the
firing squad. This broadcast was heard by many inmates
at the Modder Bee Prison.
In 1979, some of these turn coats went about telling
members of the Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO),
which was founded on the 28th April 1978 and had most of
its leadership harassed, imprisoned and banned, that if
they did not disband by the end of July 1979, they would
not be held responsible for what would happen to AZAPO
and B.C. adherents. Several meetings called to try and
address these tensions failed and that in fact was the
beginning of the “politics of intolerance” and political
hegemony among the oppressed in the country.
In 1980, the last Secretary General of B.P.C. Mpotseng
Kgokong, both banned and restricted to Johannesburg,
tried unsuccessfully to intervene to stop an ugly
campaign waged by ex-SASO office bearer and two clerics
from the Christian Institute against former members of
the B.P.C. and AZAPO. AZAPO was labelled a CIA front by
these crusaders.
In 1985, at their conference held at Kabwe in Zambia,
they resolved to “liquidate” the B.C.M.
This directive from abroad was carried with gusto by the
U.D.F. inside the country. Hence the cruel and painful
deaths of so many of our cadres who sacrificed so much
to make this country a worthwhile place to live in.
Very inflammatory statements against AZAPO in this same
year made by one cleric after the abortive Ted Kennedy
visit to South Africa did not make things any easy.
It is indeed ironic and sad that some of the B.C. cadres
that fled the country in the mid-eighties to seek
political asylum in foreign countries did so not in
flight from savage Boer repression, but form the UDF
activists who were hunting them down with obvious
intention of killing them in the savage manner that they
had grown accustomed to and which had become their trade
mark, the necklace - Black South Africa’s curse of the
century!
The cold, cruel and systematic isolation of the B.C.
cadre in exile should also be mentioned.
These are the people who could tell the truth about the
unfolding political events in the country. But, they
were expected to perpetuate the lie that someone else
who had no idea of the unfolding events in the country,
was responsible for them. Most of these cadres were
politically moulded in the noble B.C. philosophy and
were principled enough to agree to be used in this
brazen manner. We count Cde Tsietsi Mashinini amongst
these gallant sons and daughters of Azania.
This isolation was calculated to throttle these cadres
into total submission. Fortunately, that failed.
All these things were done with the misplaced hope that
the B.C.M. would be removed from the South African
political arena. How wrong they were !
CONCLUSION
Black Consciousness has in its years of existence in
South Africa (since 1st July 1969 ), gone through
unparalled repression and hostility from the state and
its ideological opponents alike. In terms of leadership,
we have lost more men and women than any other
organisation at the hands of the Boer regime and our
political opponents in the Black community. We have
survived this and gone through it with a great measure
of dignity. We stand for the truth and shall forever
uphold it.
BLACK POWER !!! BLACK POWER !!!
BLACK POWER !!!
ONE AZANIA - ONE NATION
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