This year sees South Africa observes 50 years since the Soweto uprising of June 16, 1976, when the bravery of tens of thousands of school children ignited a countrywide rebellion.
As I reflect on this blood-soaked anniversary, rage boils within me like molten lava. Fifty years ago, on 16 June 1976, the brave youth of Soweto rose up against the monstrous apartheid machine. These were our children – schoolchildren and teenagers, some barely in their teens – who dared to say “NO” to being taught in the language of their oppressors. Afrikaans was the whip of the Boer, the very symbol of white supremacy and cultural domination.
What did the racist regime do? It unleashed hell.
The notorious butcher of Soweto, Colonel Theunis Jacobus “Rooi Rus” Swanepoel – that pathetically racist and depraved security policeman whose very name struck terror into the hearts of freedom fighters – led a vicious riot police task force into the township. This red-faced brute, trained in French torture techniques developed during the Algerian War, had already earned a reputation as one of the most sadistic interrogators in the Security Branch’s infamous Sabotage Squad.
He and his bloodthirsty henchmen stormed in armed with batons, tear gas, sjamboks and live ammunition. They gunned down our children in the streets without mercy. Hector Pieterson, only 12 years old, became the immortal symbol of that massacre, his young body carried in defiance. Hundreds were slaughtered that day. Thousands more perished as the uprising spread like revolutionary fire across the land. The dusty streets ran red with the blood of the innocent, sacrificed on the altar of white minority rule.
