On Imani-day (Sat) 17th June this year, a small gathering assembled at the Hector Pieterson memorial sculpture in Brixton’s Max Roach Park for the annual Soweto Uprising Commemoration, organised by Alliance of Afrikan Women, Mama Lindiwe & the Azanian Family, Way Wive Wordz and the Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum. The event featured addresses by veteran Pan-Afrikan activist Mama Lindiwe Tsele and renowned activist, broadcast and print journalist and filmmaker Bro. Marc Wadsworth.
The attendees were there to honour the martyrs of the Soweto Uprising on June 16th 1976, where the terrorist apartheid regime trained its guns on student protestors, inspired by the Black Consciousness Movement with guidance from vPan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) activists, to reject the imposition of white supremacist education. (1) As one student wrote to The World newspaper at the time:
“Our parents are prepared to suffer under the White man’s rule. They have been living for years under these laws and they have become immune to them. But we strongly refuse to swallow an education that is designed to make us slaves in the country of our birth.” (2)
The casualties on the day and the ensuing offensive by the state exceeded 900 (3) and has been framed by photographer Sam Masana Nzima’s era defining image of teenager Mbuyisa Makhubu carrying slain 12 year-old Hector Pieterson alongside the pre-teen’s sister Antoinette Sithole. Both Nzima and Makhubu suffered harassment from the state as a result, with the latter fleeing the country soon after and has not been heard of since 1978. (4)
But like the iconic image of Emmett Till’s open casket a generation earlier, Masana Nzima’s living portrait of racist brutality exposed a regime to the entire world. (5) In one sense it marked the beginning of the end of that manifestation of the apartheid regime. Nelson Mandela was released from prison a decade and a half later and the country had its first “free and fair” elections in 1994, won by his African National Congress party (ANC). (6)
Unfortunately, although the regime changed in name, it didn’t really in form. Anglo-Boers, who account for fewer than 10 percent of the total population still control 72 percent of the country’s arable land. (7) Similarly, the hands of repression have changed from white to Black, who ostensibly adminster the supposedly democratic state for their white bosses. Nowhere is this more tragically demonstrated than in the Marikana massacre. When 34 striking miners were gunned down by police at the behest of the Lonmin mining company eleven years ago. Current president Cyril Ramaphosa of the ANC was shareholder in the company. Last year a high court ruling found him “liable and complicit” for the massacre. (8)
Alas, it doesn’t end there. Through the release of Mandela, the elections four years later and even Marikana, the state still held apartheid era political prisoners, particularly from the PAC, some of which have only been released in recent years. (9) Now, as national and provincial elections loom next year, the country is said to be ‘on the precipice of explosive xenophobic violence,’ according to the United Nations. (10)
(1) Anli Serfontein (09/06/16) 40 years after Soweto youth uprising, disillusion reigns. https://www.oikoumene.org/news/40-years-after-soweto-youth-uprising-disillusion-reigns; Chris Sankara (16/06/23) The Lion Of Azania: The Mastermind Behind 1976 June 16 Soweto Uprising. https://www.facebook.com/chris.sankara/posts/pfbid03899mKHohkJdpVe7SsTgfoZ9rxkUiqJFV453JUAVbHY1r5zBwKzfSg7j94zBy9RRl
(2) makisto (15/06/11) 1976 June 16, SA: Lest We Forget. https://www.tvsa.co.za/user/blogs/viewblogpost.aspx?blogpostid=29496#google_vignette
(3) Sankara, Op. Cit.; Jason Burke (16/06/16) Soweto uprising 40 years on: the image that shocked the world. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/16/soweto-uprising-40-years-on-hector-pieterson-image-shocked-the-world.
(4) Aryn Baker/Soweto and TIME Staff
(5) DeNeen L. Brown (12/07/18) Emmett Till’s mother opened his casket and sparked the civil rights movement. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/07/12/emmett-tills-mother-opened-his-casket-and-sparked-the-civil-rights-movement/
(6) Brian Kamanzi (21/07/18) South Africa’s Ramaphosa: From comrade to businessman. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/7/21/south-africas-ramaphosa-from-comrade-to-businessman
(7) Christopher Clark (03/05/19) South Africa Confronts a Legacy of Apartheid. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/05/land-reform-south-africa-election/586900/
(8) Siyabonga Sithole (16/08/22) Marikana Massacre: ‘Ramaphosa liable and complicit’. https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/marikana-massacre-ramaphosa-liable-and-complicit-b58e5e87-382e-47b5-99f3-fc79e7e93833
(9) Abongile Dumako (29/05/18) PAC political leaders released from prison. https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/pac-political-leaders-released-from-prison/; Kenneth Mokgatlhe (29/04/15) More than one hundred APLA soldiers still in jail – PAC. https://www.politicsweb.co.za/politics/more-than-one-hundred-apla-soldiers-still-in-jail-
(10) E. Tendayi Achiume, Morris Tidball-Binz & Felipe González Morales (15/07/22) South Africa ‘on the precipice of explosive xenophobic violence’, UN experts warn. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1122612
we ask the question:
Soweto 1976: What does it mean to us today?
1) Why were political prisoners detained for so long after apartheid?
2) Does bring “liable and complicit”for Marikana make the president’s position untenable?
3) Is there a “xenophobic violence” issue in the country?
4) Is there a need for a new Black Consciousness Movement in Azania?
Our Special Guests:
Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and an Afrikan-Centred Education Consultant. Bro. Ldr is a veteran activist of almost 40 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An African-Centred Approach To Excellence.
Bro. Chris Sankara: a Pan Africanist, a liberation military was veteran and commander of the Azanian Peoples Liberation Army military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) of Azania, the founder and the Chairperson of the World Wide Pan African Movement (WWPAM), also the owner and the Director of EARLY RISE SECURITY SERVICES.
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