Yesterday & Today; Enough is Enough by Nicholas Wolpe
On the 16th June we remember, celebrate and pay homage to the SOWETO 1976 generation, who rose up against the apartheid system and its oppressive ideology, bent on ensuring that the black majority remained “nothing more than drawers of water and hewers of wood”.
The student uprising which was both spontaneous and organised is viewed by some as the first signs of a re-emergence of internal opposition to the apartheid state following the July 11th 1963 raid on Liliesleaf and the subsequent Rivonia Trial, where Nelson Mandela and seven others of the 10 accused of sabotage were sentenced to life imprisonment, which crushed the internal Liberation Movement but did not silence it.
The students message was clear, “enough is enough”, we are no longer going to sit idlly and passively by and accept the racist policies of a government determined to deny the majority of its population fundamental inalienable human rights to all. Thus, a tool of the apartheid state to maintain the shackles of poverty and a cheap pool of labour was education.
As Harold Wolpe argued in his seminal 1972 paper “Capitalism and cheap labour-power in South Africa: From segregation to apartheid”, which redefined and shifted the discourse and debate around what apartheid was, initially argued apartheid was in effect a manifestation of the capitalist class and Capitalism to ensure a pool of cheap of labour. Thus, his argument was grounded on the following assumption that underpinning the racially decisive policies of apartheid was an intent and aim of creating a lumpen proletariat, a mass pool of uneducated cheap labour to feed the needs, wants and desires of capitalism.
In applying this critique, argument, and framework we are able to gain an understanding of what drove the students to rise up. Their education was a reproduction of this ideology and intent. Therefore, to frame June 16th simply as “Youth Day” is unfortunately a misnomer, a misrepresentation of what the uprising was about.
We therefore need to fully appreciate and understand that the uprising was not about the youth but about the systematic and vile determination of a racist Government to not only force learners to be taught in Afrikaans, but simultaneously to ensure they received an inferior education, with the aim of merely perpetuating their inferior and classless position and status in society.
To assume otherwise is a blight on what the 76 “lost generation” sacrificed in giving up their opportunity to learn and aspirations for the betterment of all for a better, fairer and equitable future, as set out and enshrined in our Freedom Charter and particular clause 9, which states “The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened! the government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent for the enhancement of our cultural life; All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands; The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace;”.
The SOWETO generation message was simple “enough is enough”. 44 years later we are hearing the same words and anguish being echoed in the United States. The brutal killing of George Floyd has sparked mass demonstrations throughout the US and other countries and the crying out for an end to social injustice systemic racism and brutality towards African Americans.
The 76 SOWETO uprising was a key moment as is the 2020 mass demonstrations springing up across the States and other countries against systemic social and racail injustices. The message then as now is clear and unambiguous “Enough is Enough”, with the people saying they are no longer going to accept or tolerate the inhumane treatment metered out purely because of the colour of their skin.
As we celebrate and mark June 16th, it affords us here in South Africa the opportunity to stand in solidarity with our fellow brothers and sisters in America, and to speak with one voice that “ Enough is Enough” that we won’t sit silently by and accept or tolerate the racist discrimination of US Society, which the treatment and behaviour of US Policeman on blacks is merely but a microcosm of this systemic societal manifestation of racism that has seeped into the very DNA, make up and fabric of US Society.
We must not forget that both the SOWETO Uprising and the killing of George Floyd have their antecedents in the systemic manifestation of racism.
