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11/05/2018

Soweto Uprising

Par gwenaelle le 11/05/2018, 16:55

Soweto is a main black city in the suburb of Johannesburg. These riots are part of the Apartheid which began in 1948.

 

 

 

 In March 1976, the White government decided to impose Afrikaans as a language instead of English in all schools. Black people were against this decision, they protested against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974, which forced all schools to use Afrikaans. So on June,4th 1976 between 10,000 and 20,000 high school students from several Sowetan schools went on strike. And on June 16th students gathered together with banners which were "against Afrikaans". That day, policemen loosed their dogs at the children and shot at them directly while they were defenceless and a thirteen-year-old child, Hector Pieterson, was killed. He became the symbol of Soweto Uprising.

 

 

 

  After this event, a lot of riots began, cars and schools were burned, people were shot and Soweto looked like a city which had lived a war. Soweto’s riots reached cities with a majority of blacks like Alexandri, Kagiso and Zululand. Emergency clinics were full of  injured and bloody children. The police demanded  that the hospital provided a list of all victims with bullet wounds but the doctors refused to create the list.

These revolts were terrible and the number of people who died is usually given as 176 with estimates up to 700. There was an economical crisis because of these riots.

The Soweto uprising is an important event because a lot of people died, it was a massacre  that revealed the anger of the blacks who were very mad at the White government with their decisions against the blacks.

 

What happened at Soweto affects me because policemen were ruthless, they shot at defenceless young people. A simple strike took a turn for the worse with a lot of terrible things.


                                                                                                                   

 

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10/05/2018

Apartheid

Par Jeanne.J le 10/05/2018, 22:36

   The most significant event during apartheid in South Africa was the demonstration in Soweto on June 16, 1976.
At this event about 20,000 students gathered in the streets. They demonstrated with the support of the Black Consciousness movement against the obligation of teaching in Afrikaans.

They were demonstrating peacefully with banners and trying not to cross the police.
Unfortunately the police were ordered by Minister Jimmy Kruger to restore order at all costs and to use every means to disperse the crowd.

Students paraded through the streets to meet but were blocked by police barricades.
They followed a path to the stadium. The first policeman who fired was Colonel Kleingeld, who was in charge of policing in Orlando. It was he who started shooting on the crowd and tear gas and dogs followed. One of the first victims, surely touched by the colonel himself, was Hector Pieterson, who was then 13 years old. Sam Nzima immortalized the moment by taking a picture of Hector in the arms of his comrade Mbuyisa Makhubu.
There were 21 dead in all. The hospitals were flooded with wounded and bloodied students. However, the doctors gave no names to the police, who went so far as to falsify the registers by putting "abscess" in their place.

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04/05/2018

The Sharpeville massacre (Apartheid)

Par Aline.A le 04/05/2018, 15:07

Event of Apartheid: The Sharpeville massacre 

I. Apartheid context 

Firstly, Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination that existed in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s, affecting populations according to racial or ethnic criteria in geographical areas. 

Nelson Mandela, is the leader of the African National Congress (ANC), symbol of the struggle against white segregationist power.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II. Sharpeville massacre

The Sharpeville massacre was an event which occurred on 21 March 1960. That day, the police opened fire and killed 69 people during a peaceful demonstration. People were participating to a political rally organized by the African National Congress (ANC)  in Sharpeville, South Africa, against a law that limited and controlled their movements. In this tragic event there were 69 deaths and among the 178 wounded, a very impressive number of gunshot wounds in the back, head or chest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sharpeville massacre led to new forms of political organization and resistance. The African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Afican Congress (PAC) were banned after this massacre. On March 18, 1960, Robert Sobukwe, president of the Pan-African Congress (PAC), called for nonviolent demonstrations across the country on March 21 to protest against the ''pass'' ( internal pass), demand its repeal and increase the basic remuneration of the working day. Also known as the natives law, pass laws severely limited the movements of not only black African citizens, but other people as well by requiring them to carry pass books when outside their homelands or designated areas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

III. Commemoration of Sharpeville massacre

In memory of the Sharpeville massacre, the ONU made March 21st the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.  This day commemorates the lives lost in fighting for democracy and equal rights in South Africa during the apartheid regime. In proclaming the International day in 1966, the ONU General Assembly calls on the international community to redouble its effort to eliminate all forms to racial discrimination. Every year on March 21st, Rethabile publishes a poem to recall the Sharpeville massacre.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

It's a short video to explain why this event had marked.

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29/04/2018

Apartheid : The Soweto Uprising

Par Flora le 29/04/2018, 17:20

The Soweto Uprising happened on the morning of 16 June 1976. It was a series of protests led by black school children in South Africa.

Students came from Sowetan schools and they began to protest peacefully in the streets because the government introduced Afrikaans as the main language in their schools. About 20,000 students took part in the protest but the police intervened and hundreds of protesters were killed.

These acts got consequences, the images of the police firing on peaceful students shocked the entire world and the truth about South Africa was revealed. But it also helped the struggle against Apartheid. The Soweto Uprising was a turning point in Apartheid, at this moment people all around the world understood what was happening in South Africa and they began to help and fight for black people's right.

 

During the Soweto Uprising, a famous photo was taken :

We can see three black South African, they are young so they were students who took part of the protests. In the arms of the boy on the right, there is another boy, younger, who was shot by the police.

The girl on the left and the boy carrying the dead body of the other boy look alarmed, they are running and they're searching for help.

The name of the boy killed by the police was Hector Pieterson.

 

I took this event because when I saw the photo it really shocked me. This photo shows the violence, the brutality and the cruelty of the human nature. They didn't hesitate to kill a poor young boy who just wanted a fair and better government. I think the worst of it is that the protestants were pacific and calm and yet they killed them in cold blood.

This is important to remember this photo, this is an important page of History and we have the duty not to forget it to not repeat the History.

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