Soweto Uprising facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Soweto Uprising
The Hector Pieterson Memorial, in Soweto. Hector Pieterson was a 12-year-old student, who was killed during the uprising.
Location	Soweto, South Africa
Date	16–18 June 1976
Deaths	Minimum of 176 with some estimates ranging up to 700
Non-fatal injuries	1,000+
Victims	Students

The Soweto Uprising was a series of protests lead by high school students in South Africa against introduction of Afrikaans as official language in education with oppression and neglecting their first languages starting from the morning of 16 June 1976. It is estimated that 20,000 students took part in the protests. They were met with fierce police brutality. The number of victims in the uprising is usually estimated as 176, but some sources estimate as many as 700 fatalities. In remembrance of these events, 16 June is now a public holiday in South Africa, named Youth Day.

Causes

Black South African high school students in Soweto protested the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974, which forced all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in equal terms as languages of instruction. The association of Afrikaans with apartheid prompted black South Africans to prefer English. Even the Bantustan regimes chose English and an indigenous African language as official languages. In addition, English was gaining prominence as the language most often used in commerce and industry. The 1974 decree was intended to force the reverse of the decline of Afrikaans among black Africans. The Afrikaner-dominated government used the clause of the 1909 Union of South Africa Act that recognised only English and Dutch, the latter being replaced by Afrikaans in 1925, as official languages as its pretext. All schools had to provide instruction in both Afrikaans and English as languages, but white South African students learned other subjects in their home language.

The Regional Director of Bantu Education (Northern Transvaal Region), J.G. Erasmus, told Circuit Inspectors and Principals of Schools that from 1 January 1975, Afrikaans had to be used for mathematics, arithmetic, and social studies from standard five (7th grade), according to the Afrikaans Medium Decree. English would be the medium of instruction for general science and practical subjects (homecraft, needlework, woodwork, metalwork, art, agricultural science). Indigenous languages would be used only for religious instruction, music, and physical culture.

The decree was resented deeply by the black population. Desmond Tutu, the bishop of Lesotho and later Dean of Johannesburg, stated that Afrikaans was "the language of the oppressor." Also, teacher organizations, such as the African Teachers Association of South Africa, objected to the decree.

Punt Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education, was quoted as saying: "A Black man may be trained to work on a farm or in a factory. He may work for an employer who is either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking and the man who has to give him instructions may be either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking. Why should we now start quarrelling about the medium of instruction among the Black people as well?... No, I have not consulted them and I am not going to consult them. I have consulted the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa...."

A change in language of instruction forced the students to focus on understanding the language, instead of the subject material. That made critical analysis of the content difficult and discouraged critical thinking.

The resentment grew until 30 April 1976, when children at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike and refused to go to school. Their rebellion then spread to many other schools in Soweto. Black South African students protested because they believed that they deserved to be treated and taught like white South Africans. Also, very few people in Soweto spoke Afrikaans. A student from Morris Isaacson High School, Teboho "Tsietsi" Mashinini, proposed a meeting on 13 June 1976 to discuss what should be done. Students formed an Action Committee, later known as the Soweto Students' Representative Council, which organised a mass rally for 16 June to make themselves heard.

Uprising

On the morning of 16 June 1976, between 10,000 and 20,000 black students walked from their schools to Orlando Stadium for a rally to protest having to learn in Afrikaans in school. Many students who later participated in the protest arrived at schools that morning without prior knowledge of the protest but agreed to become involved. The protest was planned by the Soweto Students' Representative Council's (SSRC) Action Committee, with support from the wider Black Consciousness Movement. Teachers in Soweto also supported the march after the Action Committee emphasized good discipline and peaceful actions.

Tsietsi Mashinini led students from Morris Isaacson High School to join up with others who walked from Naledi High School. The students began the march, only to find out that police had barricaded the road along their intended route. The leader of the action committee asked the crowd not to provoke the police, and the march continued on another route and eventually ended up near Orlando High School. The crowd of between 3,000 and 10,000 students made its way towards the area of the school. Students sang and waved placards with slogans such as, "Down with Afrikaans", "Viva Azania" and "If we must do Afrikaans, Vorster must do Zulu".

The police set their trained dog on the protesters, who responded by killing it. The police then began to shoot directly at the demonstrators. The violence escalated and 23 people died on the first day in Soweto. Among them was Dr. Melville Edelstein, who had devoted his life to social welfare among blacks.

Casualties and aftermath

The number of people who died is usually given as 176, with estimates up to 700. The clashes occurred while the South African government was being forced to "transform" apartheid in international eyes towards a more "benign" form. In October 1976, Transkei, the first Bantustan, was proclaimed "independent" by the government. That attempt to showcase supposed South African "commitment" to self-determination backfired, however, since Transkei was internationally derided as a puppet state.

For the government, the uprising marked the most fundamental challenge yet to apartheid. The economic and political instability that it caused was heightened by the strengthening international boycott. It would be 14 years before Nelson Mandela was released, but the state could never restore the relative peace and social stability of the early 1970s, as black resistance grew.

Many white South Africans were outraged at the government's actions in Soweto. The day after the massacre, about 400 white students from the University of the Witwatersrand marched through Johannesburg's city centre in protest. Black workers went on strike as well and joined them as the campaign progressed. Riots also broke out in the black townships of other cities in South Africa.

Most of the bloodshed had abated by the end of 1976, when the death toll had stood at more than 600.

The continued clashes in Soweto caused economic instability. The South African rand devalued fast, and the government was plunged into a crisis.

The African National Congress printed and distributed leaflets with the slogan "Free Mandela, Hang Vorster". It immediately linked the language issue to its revolutionary heritage and programme and helped to establish its leading role.

International reactions

The UN Security Council passed Resolution 392, which strongly condemned the incident and the apartheid government.

A week after the uprising began, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the United States Secretary of State met South African State President, Vorster in West Germany to discuss the situation in Rhodesia, but the Soweto uprising did not feature in the discussions. Kissinger and Vorster met again in Pretoria in September 1976, with students in Soweto and elsewhere protesting his visit and being fired on by police.

ANC exiles called for international action and more economic sanctions against South Africa.

In media

Images of the riots spread all over the world and shocked millions. The photograph of Hector Pieterson, as captured by the photojournalist Sam Nzima, caused outrage and brought down international condemnation on the apartheid government.

The Soweto riots were depicted in the 1987 film by the director Richard Attenborough, Cry Freedom and in the 1992 musical film Sarafina! and the musical production of the same name by Mbongeni Ngema. The riots also inspired the novel A Dry White Season by Andre Brink and a 1989 movie of the same title.

The uprising also featured in the 2003 film Stander about the notorious bank robber and former police captain Andre Stander. The lyrics of the song "Soweto Blues" by Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba describe the Soweto Uprising and the children's part in it.

Radio

In June 1996, the Ulwazi Educational Radio Project of Johannesburg compiled an hour-long radio documentary 20 years after the uprising portraying the events of 16 June entirely from the perspective of people living in Soweto at the time. Many of the students who planned or joined the uprising, as well as other witnesses, took part, including the photographer Peter Magubane, the reporter Sophie Tema and Tim Wilson, the white doctor who pronounced Pieterson dead in Baragwanath Hospital. The programme was broadcast on SABC and on a number of local radio stations throughout South Africa. The following year, BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service broadcast a revised version containing fresh interviews, The Day Apartheid Died.

The programme was runner-up at the 1998 European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) TV & Radio Awards and also at the 1998 Media Awards of the One World International Broadcasting Trust, and was highly commended at the 1998 Prix Italia radio awards. In May 1999, it was rebroadcast by BBC Radio 4 as The Death of Apartheid with a fresh introduction that provided added historical context for a British audience by Anthony Sampson, a former editor of Drum magazine and the author of the authorised biography (1999) of Nelson Mandela.

See also

In Spanish: Disturbios de Soweto para niños