I thought about it and I won't write about that day as if I were there. The bravery, selflessness and sacrifice exhibited by children on that day was and is onliest. It took martyred innocence for the world to denounce it's complicitness, they knew the appalling and horrible conditions innocence endured. It was complicit in its silence as is always the case.
May we never forget how gold the soul black is, even now they try in vain to extinguisher its luster.
On June the 16th 1976 in South Africa, Soweto, students mobilised by the Soweto Students Representatives Council's (SSRC) Action Committee supported by the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) staged a peaceful protest. Students from Morris Isaacson and Naledi High School and Phefeni Junior Secondary were pivotal and the impetus of the protest. Tepello Motopanyane and Tsietsi Mashinini were members of the SSRC Action Committee from Naledi and Morris Isaacson High Schools respectively and addressed the crowds at the beginning and along the way. The march was in remonstrantion of the declaration of Afrikaans and English languages as compulsory medium of instructions in schools in 1974. The declarations were made on the premise of diabolical legislation. The Bantu Education Act of 1953. "Bantu" in the context of Bantu education has demeaning and abusive connotations. "The Bantu Educational system was designed to ‘train and fit’ Africans for their role in the newly evolving apartheid society. This role was one of labourer, worker, and servant only." As H.F Verwoerd, the architect of the Bantu Education Act (1953), conceived."
The peaceful protest started in Soweto, Naledi High School and Morris Isaacson concurrently and was meant to culminate at a rally in Orlando Stadium. It was highly attended, no actual figure is on record but it's believed that there were between 3 000 and 10 000 students in attendance. "In the end, there were 11 columns of students marching to Orlando Stadium." On their way, they were met with heavily armed police that barricaded the road and impeding the protest.
It is reported that there were a couple of initial clashes between the police and the students. Though intense the students were unfazed and kept marching till they got to what is now know as the Hector Petersen Square, close to Orlando High School. The march came to a halt again.
The police set a dog at the protesting students who reportedly responded by killing it. The situation escalated quickly, the highly volatile confrontation exploded. The Police fired teargas at the students before firing live ammunition into the crowd of unarmed students. They showed no restraint and perverted the course of justice. Their appalling and damnable actions were so calamitous that, "emergency clinics were swamped with injured and bloody children. The police requested that the hospital provide a list of all victims with bullet wounds to prosecute them for rioting. The hospital administrator passed this request to the doctors, but the doctors refused to create the list. Doctors recorded bullet wounds as abscesses." It was and is heinous, how unrepentant and unrelenting they were in their pursuit to kill and persecute innocence, to oppress with impunity.
Prime Minister John Vorster warned, “This government will not be intimidated.” "Intimidated" by little boys with wet noses they forced to abandon their toys for cardboard placards to be liberators. How shameless.
"23 people died on the first day of the protests among them was Hector Pieterson, a 13-year-old boy shot at Orlando West High School." A picture of dying Hector being carried away by terrified Mbuyisa Makhubu accompanied by his sister Antoinette Sithole: martyred innocence became the allegory of the Soweto uprising. "At first, I ran away from the scene, but then, after recovering myself, I went back," recalled photographer; Sam Nzima who kept on taking pictures even though he was scared. The picture’s publication forced Nzima into hiding amid death threats. As if killing him would have untold the story of martyred innocence.
Mbuyiso Makhubu running with lifeless Hector Pieterson accompanied by Pieterson's sister, Antoinette Sithole: original picture by Sam Nzima.
The wind of change blew.
"Anger at the senseless killings inspired retaliatory action that birthed a widespread revolt. On the 17th of June 1976, about 300 predominantly white students from the University of the Witwatersrand marched through Johannesburg's city center in protest of the killings joined by black workers. Riots would break out in the townships across the country.
The uprising against the government spread across the country and carried on until the following year." The impetus would not wane, martyred innocence would demand restitution from beyond the grave. The impetus became the heartbeat of the struggle against Apartheid.
The Apartheid government claimed only 23 students lost their lives in the Soweto uprising. Though the fatalities are usually given as 176 it is estimated an excess of 600 students lost their lives and a thousand were injured in the uprising. "It is reported that the violence only died down on the 18th of June."
The 16th of June is now commemorated as the Youth Day, "honouring the youth that gave their lives in the fight for freedom and democracy."
Honouring light that conquered darkness.
There is no speech or amount of eloquence that will move evil. Our oppressors aren't hard of hearing, they know what they pursue, is our destruction. May time never forget how shameless they were, may you never forget. May time never forget how they murdered little boys and went home to pat theirs on the back on dinner tables with bloody hands. May you never forget what darkness they hoard in their hearts.
In pursuit of freedom may we never solely put the onus of morality in the hands of the "world" many a times she is complicit in her silence till much blood has been spilled, many a times she has blood on her hands too.
(Version of events are based on witness accounts and vary depending on the source.)