A Lesson in Living History

This morning, during my 10am lecture for "South Africa in the 20th Century" I experienced one of the greatest learning moments of my life. Sometimes living here, it is possible to forget the scars of the apartheid era, and focus on current SA life. Of course mass inequalities still exist, and to be fair, South Africa has a lot of social, economic and political issues, but for the most part, the apartheid seems like a distant memory, something that I am learning about abstractly, as "back then" and "before".

The course convener for my SA history class is one of the foremost authors on coloured politics during the apartheid era. When doing research for various assignments here at UCT, his name pops up again and again, either as the author, or editor of major historical research. In class, he is unassuming, typically wearing jeans and a fleece, while earning appreciation from students for his propensity to play music at the end of lectures. Typically the songs are relevant to his life during apartheid, and he has encouraged us to think about the impact that music has on memories and significant moments. 

Today in class Prof. Adhikari lectured about the Soweto Revolt. Essentially, on June 16, 1976, black African students (primarily middle and high schoolers) living in Soweto planned a peaceful protest against unfair and segregationist education policies. At the moment that the various groups of students converged at their central meeting point in Soweto they were confronted with police who were armed with automatic rifles and riot gear. They launched tear gas into the crowd and opened fire, killing one 13 year old boy and wounding others. This horrific episode was a launching pad for other similar uprisings throughout South Africa. 

All of this lecture was fairly horrifying. Things that occurred during the apartheid in South Africa often seem impossible, too terrible to fathom. However this is still accompanied by an outside perspective, a sort of intellectual interest in historical fact without any depth of emotion. A very detached way of understanding the trauma that South Africa went through. 

That changed today. At the end of the lecture, Prof. Adhikari said, "I was unsure if I should tell you about my own experiences during this time, but as we have seven minutes left I will give you a brief overview." He goes on to describe how during this time he was working as a teacher in a coloured township, as he was unable to attend University due to apartheid policies. Prof. Adhikari is identified as Indian, which under the apartheid meant that he would only have been allowed to attend a "coloured" university, which offered a second rate education. He chose instead to work as a teacher, partly because he was involved with Marxist anti-apartheid politics and thought that he could subvert the system from the inside through influencing a new generation. 

Soon after the Soweto uprising, students at the school where Adhikari taught organized their own protest. The mood was festive when he entered school grounds that day. The children, who ranged in age from 12-17, sang protest songs, held signs demanding better education and were peaceful. About half and hour after my professor arrived at school for the day, the riot police showed up. They corralled the students into the middle of the school yard, blocking the only real entrance of a large, fenced-in area. After a warning to disperse, which the students did not heed, the police fired tear gas over their heads and into the greater yard. There had been a small hole cut in the back part of the fence, which naturally, all of the children rushed towards in the ensuing panic. The police pushed forward, trapping the students against the back fence, and in the words of Professor Adhikari, "They beat the shit out of them, the beat the absolute shit out of those students." He  told us how walking back from school that day, his colleague remarked that things would never be the same, and indeed, at least for him, they were not. From then on, peaceful protest was seen as a naive pipe dream, and students began to arm themselves and flee South Africa to join guerrilla organizations bent on militant action in the face of unjust violence. 

There is much to take away from this story. For one, the apartheid seemed more real to me today than it has in the past three months of my stay. More importantly though, I thought about those children, and who I was in high school, and how I would have reacted given the same circumstances. In an age where politicians and the media fight over petty sex scandals and potentially politically incorrect wording of remarks, it is important to realize how lucky we are to take those things for granted. How not long ago, and indeed even today there are children, young children, fighting for basic rights like education and safe living conditions. All at once I feel lucky and a bit depressed that I can't do more, that it is impossible to help everyone, everywhere.