Young Comrades Will Lead Youth Day in South Africa: From Fighting Apartheid to Fighting for Communism
GQEBERHA (South Africa), May 18— The working class has suffered the worst forms of brutality meted out by the capitalist class. But we have never given up. Youth Day commemorates the role of young people in the fight against Apartheid (legal segregation). It marks the events of June 16, 1976, when students in Soweto marched to protest the government’s racist language policy in schools.
First, we must look at what happened at Sharpeville. Sharpeville is one of the oldest townships in the country. It’s a mining area. Young people would leave their racially segregated townships in rural villages and hunt for jobs in the cities. Men would leave their families, wives, and children to eke out a living in the mines, where they would live in the hostels. Years would pass by without the husbands visiting their families in rural villages.
The apartheid government introduced laws prohibiting women living with their families in the hostels. This made family life difficult. It was difficult for ordinary people to get a domestic passport required for travel.
So, in 1960 a massive protest was organised at Sharpeville against the pass laws. In order to put down the protest, police were ordered to shoot at the protesters. Sixty-nine men, women, and children were shot dead. This became known as the Sharpeville massacre.
A commission was set up to determine who killed the innocent people. The findings exonerated the killers. Not a single police was found guilty. The minister of police got off scot-free.
“I want to argue that if the protest was organized against the capitalist state to bring an end to its rule, the outcome would have been different,” said a comrade. “These protests are in the main reformist but carved off as revolutionary to draw masses of our people into them.”
Again in 1985 in Uitenhage, police opened fire on a crowd marking the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre. They killed 35 people and wounded 27 more. Again, the commission was set up to absolve the guilty ones.
In Soweto 1976, students were protesting against Afrikaans being made the language of instruction for every student in South Africa. The protest started in Soweto but moved quickly throughout the country. Students as young as thirteen years old were murdered, including Hector Peterson. He became a symbol of the students murdered by police for protesting.
One would think that was enough but lo and behold, after the African National Congress (ANC) came to power, it happened again. On 16 August 2012, the South African Police Service killed thirty-four miners during a six-week wildcat strike at the Lonmin platinum mine at Marikana. The workers were demanding a living wage.
This happened under the so-called “people’s government.” Many angrily hold current South African President Ramaphosa, who was a Lonmin director and a former mineworker union leader, responsible. The ANC even refused to call it a massacre. They wanted it called a tragedy.
Young comrades of the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP), especially women, will be leading Youth Day activities in Uitenhage this year.
Organizing masses for Revolution, not reform, becomes key today. ICWP is at the forefront mobilizing the masses for Communist Revolution. It is the Revolution which will avenge those who lost their lives in the struggle against Apartheid, low wages, racism, and murderous police. Viva ICWP! Viva!
ICWP Pamphlet: South African Miners’ Strike here