The Soweto Uprising

The Soweto Uprising of June 1976 is considered as an event which profoundly changed the socio-political landscape of South Africa. The Uprising was triggered by various events that have been linked to policies founded by the Apartheid government which led to the introduction of the Bantu Education Act in 1953. This was supported by South African segregation laws which enforced the policies set up by the Apartheid government. Shortly after this Act was introduced, students became more politically and socially conscious and the formation of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) as well as the South African Student Organisation (SASO) were introduced to fight as anti-Apartheid movements. In 1974, Afrikaans and English were made compulsory in

In 1977 after the uprising, Tebello Motapanyane, the secretary general of SASM (South African Students Movement), spoke up about the reasons their committee decided to launch and take part in the student protest:

“We took a decision to inform the staff that we totally reject the half-yearly examinations and were not going to write the exams until our demands were met. The Naledi branch called a meeting under SASM on Sunday, June 13 where it was actually decided that there should be positive action from all the high schools and secondary schools in Soweto. We discussed Afrikaans and how to make the government aware that we opposed their decision. The delegates decided that there should be a mass demonstration from the Soweto students as a whole."

The student protests were initially meant to be peaceful marches which instead turned into a violent attack on the students that escalated into a shooting. These shootings sparked a massive uprising which spread to more than a hundred urban and rural areas throughout South Africa. Students from all over the nation were taking notice and started joining in with protests of their own to show their support of the black students. Yusuf Omar, a student in an Indian township in Johannesburg, stated the following: “It's a virtual world when it comes to emotion … We weren't seeing the truth, but we got it from comrades…

This includes taking apart information to find relevance which will back up one’s arguments, taking out any information that may come across as biased and analyzing it fairly in order to come to a balanced conclusion. During the investigation into the consequences of the Soweto Uprising, there were quite a few limitations that were brought to light. For Historians such as Neville Alexander, there are many issues regarding bias when looking at how the South African Education System was affected by the Soweto Uprising, as there are many different opinions on who was to blame and how it affected different people part of the situation. When dealing with topics as sensitive as racial discrimination as in this essay, it is very easy to choose sides and point fingers, and for Historians this is often a challenge being faced when trying to establish a fair, balanced conclusion. When looking at the investigation done by Historian Robert Britt Horwitz, it also becomes clear that there are many implications that will be left to be analyzed by others researching the topic, and justifying certain actions of the past is broken down into a matter of opinion. This differs in method when comparing a Historian’s work to that of a Scientist or Mathematician, as these subjects are very straightforward and there are very few “maybe” answers in math or science. In History,