Remembering Soweto: thinking of Nigeria
It's thirty three years today since Hastings Ndlovu, Hector Pieterson and twenty one other children were mowed down by the hat-filled bullets of the apartheid state machine, in the South Western Township (Soweto) of Orlando, which had produced the Mandelas, and Sisulus then in prison. Their crime was refusing to be taught with what Desmond Tutu described as "the oppressors language" in line with the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974. Over 500 persons were to be shot dead or never to be seen again from the violence that rocked the apartheid enclave for days after this. It was actually the beginning of the end of the apartheid regime as within and outside the country the visible "fire in Soweto, burning all my people" (as Okosun rightly sang) became a clarion for action
Sam Nzima's picture of 12-year old Hector carried in the arms of his cousin, with his sister running along distraught by trauma, became a prick on the conscience of humanity (although of course what has no conscience could not be pricked, thus Anglo-Saxon capital, for example, continued its intercourse with the racist devil).
What are some of the general lessons in brief, we could draw from Soweto as activists in today's Nigeria, and indeed as partisans in the struggle for social change, across the world as a whole?
First, I would say is the import of consistent organization and the multifarous nature of organization in building the momentum for change. It took ANC 82 years to move from formation to democratic seizure of power. Power which it won it recently retained in a situation which Bond recently described as a further left-shifting South Africa. ANC was barely on ground in the country then in 1976. Haven been dealt a severe blow in the aftermath of Sharpeville and the Rivonia trials, its leadership and activists were mainly, either in jail or exile. But the traditions of organization remained and Biko's Black Consciousness Movement/Black People's Convention was the heart of this. It inspired and gave support to the Soweto Students’ Representative Council’s (SSRC) Action Committee which organized what was intended to be and started as a peaceful protest march.
Second, one could say was the importance of theory rooted in struggle. ANC eventually was to be the main beneficiary of the struggle inspired by the BPC based largely on its relation of reality to theory on the way forward for a post-apartheid South Africa as being a non-racialist one. Groups like the BPC, Sobukwe's PAC, AZAPO and co which stood on the ideology of black nationalism were to remain largely fringe platforms then and now (of course this is not to attribute the dialectics of power solely to theory...).
Third and most importantly I believe is the correctness of the axiom "dare to struggle, dare to win". Many a time, when we dare to take the first definitive step, or repeat this, in the cause of struggle, we never can fathom what failures or success, what casualties and yet what victories could lie behind that door of change we dare to open...or at least seek to ensure is not closed.
In summing up, I would also want to use this opportunity to make a call with regards to the young lad (Hector's cousin, if I remember correctly) in the Nzima's picture...particularly for us Nigerians. I do think, his name needs to restored in the hagiography of that day which is now African Day of the Child. Searches, I have made do not even reflect his name (may be, if I had more time for more extensive searches...? I do it in my notes but back home in Nigeria), but his presence of mind (and in a sense Nzima's) and compassion not to leave a bllood and companheiro still on the battle field gave the world a visualization of that day's horrendous depth.
For us Nigerians his case assumes a double importance. For his last location (he became wanted by the apartheid state after that picture became 'globalized' and had to go on exile), was in Calabar, Nigeria. As some of my South African friends asked when I went to the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum shortly after it was opened "Aye it is not enough for you to fall on your kneels and kiss this spot....where is our brother?" If he is dead, as they rightly said, at least knowing would soothe his family's uncertainty of his ends. Yoruba have a saying that one's child known to be dead is better than one's child being missing! If anyone knows anything about his ends living or dead it would be a major step, I think, towards filling some gaps in the story 33 years after.
Sam Nzima's picture of 12-year old Hector carried in the arms of his cousin, with his sister running along distraught by trauma, became a prick on the conscience of humanity (although of course what has no conscience could not be pricked, thus Anglo-Saxon capital, for example, continued its intercourse with the racist devil).
What are some of the general lessons in brief, we could draw from Soweto as activists in today's Nigeria, and indeed as partisans in the struggle for social change, across the world as a whole?
First, I would say is the import of consistent organization and the multifarous nature of organization in building the momentum for change. It took ANC 82 years to move from formation to democratic seizure of power. Power which it won it recently retained in a situation which Bond recently described as a further left-shifting South Africa. ANC was barely on ground in the country then in 1976. Haven been dealt a severe blow in the aftermath of Sharpeville and the Rivonia trials, its leadership and activists were mainly, either in jail or exile. But the traditions of organization remained and Biko's Black Consciousness Movement/Black People's Convention was the heart of this. It inspired and gave support to the Soweto Students’ Representative Council’s (SSRC) Action Committee which organized what was intended to be and started as a peaceful protest march.
Second, one could say was the importance of theory rooted in struggle. ANC eventually was to be the main beneficiary of the struggle inspired by the BPC based largely on its relation of reality to theory on the way forward for a post-apartheid South Africa as being a non-racialist one. Groups like the BPC, Sobukwe's PAC, AZAPO and co which stood on the ideology of black nationalism were to remain largely fringe platforms then and now (of course this is not to attribute the dialectics of power solely to theory...).
Third and most importantly I believe is the correctness of the axiom "dare to struggle, dare to win". Many a time, when we dare to take the first definitive step, or repeat this, in the cause of struggle, we never can fathom what failures or success, what casualties and yet what victories could lie behind that door of change we dare to open...or at least seek to ensure is not closed.
In summing up, I would also want to use this opportunity to make a call with regards to the young lad (Hector's cousin, if I remember correctly) in the Nzima's picture...particularly for us Nigerians. I do think, his name needs to restored in the hagiography of that day which is now African Day of the Child. Searches, I have made do not even reflect his name (may be, if I had more time for more extensive searches...? I do it in my notes but back home in Nigeria), but his presence of mind (and in a sense Nzima's) and compassion not to leave a bllood and companheiro still on the battle field gave the world a visualization of that day's horrendous depth.
For us Nigerians his case assumes a double importance. For his last location (he became wanted by the apartheid state after that picture became 'globalized' and had to go on exile), was in Calabar, Nigeria. As some of my South African friends asked when I went to the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum shortly after it was opened "Aye it is not enough for you to fall on your kneels and kiss this spot....where is our brother?" If he is dead, as they rightly said, at least knowing would soothe his family's uncertainty of his ends. Yoruba have a saying that one's child known to be dead is better than one's child being missing! If anyone knows anything about his ends living or dead it would be a major step, I think, towards filling some gaps in the story 33 years after.
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