Abstract
Beginning with the massive uprising by the students of Soweto in Johannesburg on 16 June 1976, black schools in South Africa became theatres of war as the students engaged in running battles with the authorities against, inter alia, the poor quality of education provided to blacks in the country; the Afrikaans language medium; authoritarianism, and the apartheid system in general. Although there were whispers of rebellion in rural communities during the mid-1970s, and urban students studying in the countryside were prominent in these uprisings, it was only in the 1980s that rural youths reached a level of political consciousness comparable to that of their urban counterparts and began to play a leading role in local struggles against apartheid policies and the Bantustan system. In the 1970s, rural youths were increasingly drawn into the education system, but they had not yet developed a strong political consciousness, whereas by the 1980s young people throughout the country had developed, what Colin Bundy calls, “generational consciousness”. Ambient social and historical processes reshaped their consciousness and they became self-assertive and conscious of themselves as a distinct social category with a common identity. They realised that they had the capacity to effect far-reaching changes in society. This consciousness developed at the time when there were progressive erosion of African tradition and the legitimacy of chieftainship; thus rendering rural youths more receptive to urban youth culture and political ideologies propagated by the urban-based liberation movements. Using archival material and oral sources, mainly interviews with former students in the area, this article looks at changing patterns of youth mobilisation in the village of Zebediela in the northern Transvaal from 1976 to the early 1990s.
Highlights
June / Junie 2018In the four decades since the 1976 Soweto students’ uprisings, a huge volume of literature has been produced that offers numerous interpretations of this student-led revolt
There were whispers of rebellion in rural communities during the mid-1970s, and urban students studying in the countryside were prominent in these uprisings, it was only in the 1980s that rural youths reached a level of political consciousness comparable to that of their urban counterparts and began to play a leading role in local struggles against apartheid policies and the Bantustan system
Ambient social and historical processes reshaped their consciousness and they became self-assertive and conscious of themselves as a distinct social category with a common identity. They realised that they had the capacity to effect far-reaching changes in society. This consciousness developed at the time when there were progressive erosion of African tradition and the legitimacy of chieftainship; rendering rural youths more receptive to urban youth culture and political ideologies propagated by the urban-based liberation movements
Summary
In the four decades since the 1976 Soweto students’ uprisings, a huge volume of literature has been produced that offers numerous interpretations of this student-led revolt. The forms of struggles and resistance in the countryside have invariably been more muted and incomplete and not as dramatic and eye-catching as those unfolding in urban townships In part, this is because the dominant political movement in the country at the time, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), concentrated too narrowly on developments in teacher training colleges, technical colleges and universities in the Bantustan areas and neglected the surrounding rural communities and their concerns. This is because the dominant political movement in the country at the time, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), concentrated too narrowly on developments in teacher training colleges, technical colleges and universities in the Bantustan areas and neglected the surrounding rural communities and their concerns This article addresses this blind spot and pays particular attention to the rising discontent in educational institutions and secondary schools in parts of the northern Transvaal that felt the shockwaves of the Soweto students’ uprising of June 1976; especially those with boarding facilities. There was never any physical coercion or confrontation and, in the end, those who called for class disruptions were increasingly marginalised when lectures resumed in earnest in subsequent years.[25]
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