An LA-SA Radio presenter, Lunga Majai, asked me on air the other day: where were you on June 16 1976?
This question was reminiscent of the Negro spiritual: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” As we are the body of Christ, the brutal killing of those innocent young souls in 1976 was His crucifixion.
On that day, I was teaching at the University of Fort Hare, even though I qualified as youth since I had not even turned 30 years. The 1976 uprisings are correctly bestowed on Soweto since the seeds of dissension first germinated there and on the day.
Yet, unknown to the apartheid regime, this was to be a self-fuelling inferno that virtually engulfed all higher centres of learning. Contrary to a proverbial rolling stone that gathers no moss, this ballooned to a rolling mass action with exponential momentum the further it spread from the epicentre.
At Fort Hare, at the opening of the second semester, students were uncharacteristically led by a tall, slender and very light-complexioned fresher, who Shakespeare would say “he has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous”.
Indeed this “general” proved very dangerous to the commissioned riot police as a thinker who outwitted them by training students how to break fall, how to dampen the effects of tear gas and when and how to retreat and take cover in our apartments.
A rare phenomenon at the time, described by the indomitable principal of Unisa, Professor Theo van Wyk, elsewhere as “a university is where students and lecturers meet. But is this a meeting of the body or of the mind? To me it is the latter”.
Indeed, students and their lecturers once more became fellow struggle martyrs. Fort Hare closed down. I miss that disciplined student leader.
Fort Hare had once again taken her rightful place as leader of all oppressed university campuses. Fort Hare then fuelled the flames of fury that engulfed the campuses of UWC, Turfloop, Durban-Westville and Ongoye. Now Fort Hare must take her rightful place as a leader of all liberated and therefore aptly liberal universities in South Africa.
Twenty-three years into our democracy, however, we have still not realised Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe’s dream that “Fort Hare must be to the African what Stellenbosch is to the Afrikaner. It must be the barometer of African thought. It is interesting to note that the theory of apartheid was worked out at Stellenbosch. So also must Fort Hare express and lead African thought.”
Alas, that dream is fast fading into the light of common day.
Last year, Fort Hare celebrated her centenary. Where were the institutions and structures who were there as Richard Nixon’s historian-adviser would declare “when history was first made?”
Where were Chief Tyhali and his subjects of Imingcangathelo who donated land and literally fetched water and sand from the Thyume River to build what is today Fort Hare brick and mortar?
Where were the churches who pooled their resources to make the Fort Hare dream come true? The successors to the United Transkei Territorial General Council who donated the first chunk of $16000?
Where were the chiefs who gave permission through the South African Native National Congress for the “foreign” concept of a university to take root on the banks of the Thyume?
Where was the municipality with its strategic plan for the rebuilding of the university town of Alice – a sine qua non?
Where was input from the National Heritage Council with its interest in those heritage sites? The schools that Fort Hare gave birth to? “Ay where were they,” ala John Keats.
Lastly where did Lovedale Press feature? This is the jewel of the Eastern Cape publishing houses, unparalleled in other provinces – a publishing house and Fort Hare Bookstore that bled together with the struggling masses and was intermittently threatened with banishment as so were some of its publications banned. Monica Wilson’s bones must be turning in her grave.
Some of us never looked left or right of Lovedale Press in selling our copyrights, despite the lucrative returns offered by the Afrikaner publishing houses, who themselves were virtually bribed with government grants.
Lovedale Press will rise from the ashes of the current government like a phoenix.
In 2015, I committed to move heaven and earth to ensure that Fort Hare, with her children and grandchildren universities, will within 10 years be the best university in South Africa judged by all known rational criteria. I am now left with eight years. Fortunately the building blocks are still there. I will make it happen.
The dividend the apartheid regime awarded us for the 1976 uprising was that for the first time, university personnel of all races were to be remunerated on the same scale as from 1977 – a meagre reward considering the investment cost of blood, sweat, tears (not only from tear gas), toil and torment.
Where were you on June 16 1976?
Professor Mncedisi Jordan was on the staff of the University of Fort Hare and Walter Sisulu University, teaching and supervising accountancy students. He now researches indigenous cultures and writes in his personal capacity.
The promise of Fort Hare still alive
This question was reminiscent of the Negro spiritual: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” As we are the body of Christ, the brutal killing of those innocent young souls in 1976 was His crucifixion.
On that day, I was teaching at the University of Fort Hare, even though I qualified as youth since I had not even turned 30 years. The 1976 uprisings are correctly bestowed on Soweto since the seeds of dissension first germinated there and on the day.
Yet, unknown to the apartheid regime, this was to be a self-fuelling inferno that virtually engulfed all higher centres of learning. Contrary to a proverbial rolling stone that gathers no moss, this ballooned to a rolling mass action with exponential momentum the further it spread from the epicentre.
At Fort Hare, at the opening of the second semester, students were uncharacteristically led by a tall, slender and very light-complexioned fresher, who Shakespeare would say “he has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous”.
Indeed this “general” proved very dangerous to the commissioned riot police as a thinker who outwitted them by training students how to break fall, how to dampen the effects of tear gas and when and how to retreat and take cover in our apartments.
A rare phenomenon at the time, described by the indomitable principal of Unisa, Professor Theo van Wyk, elsewhere as “a university is where students and lecturers meet. But is this a meeting of the body or of the mind? To me it is the latter”.
Indeed, students and their lecturers once more became fellow struggle martyrs. Fort Hare closed down. I miss that disciplined student leader.
Fort Hare had once again taken her rightful place as leader of all oppressed university campuses. Fort Hare then fuelled the flames of fury that engulfed the campuses of UWC, Turfloop, Durban-Westville and Ongoye. Now Fort Hare must take her rightful place as a leader of all liberated and therefore aptly liberal universities in South Africa.
Twenty-three years into our democracy, however, we have still not realised Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe’s dream that “Fort Hare must be to the African what Stellenbosch is to the Afrikaner. It must be the barometer of African thought. It is interesting to note that the theory of apartheid was worked out at Stellenbosch. So also must Fort Hare express and lead African thought.”
Alas, that dream is fast fading into the light of common day.
Last year, Fort Hare celebrated her centenary. Where were the institutions and structures who were there as Richard Nixon’s historian-adviser would declare “when history was first made?”
Where were Chief Tyhali and his subjects of Imingcangathelo who donated land and literally fetched water and sand from the Thyume River to build what is today Fort Hare brick and mortar?
Where were the churches who pooled their resources to make the Fort Hare dream come true? The successors to the United Transkei Territorial General Council who donated the first chunk of $16000?
Where were the chiefs who gave permission through the South African Native National Congress for the “foreign” concept of a university to take root on the banks of the Thyume?
Where was the municipality with its strategic plan for the rebuilding of the university town of Alice – a sine qua non?
Where was input from the National Heritage Council with its interest in those heritage sites? The schools that Fort Hare gave birth to? “Ay where were they,” ala John Keats.
Lastly where did Lovedale Press feature? This is the jewel of the Eastern Cape publishing houses, unparalleled in other provinces – a publishing house and Fort Hare Bookstore that bled together with the struggling masses and was intermittently threatened with banishment as so were some of its publications banned. Monica Wilson’s bones must be turning in her grave.
Some of us never looked left or right of Lovedale Press in selling our copyrights, despite the lucrative returns offered by the Afrikaner publishing houses, who themselves were virtually bribed with government grants.
Lovedale Press will rise from the ashes of the current government like a phoenix.
In 2015, I committed to move heaven and earth to ensure that Fort Hare, with her children and grandchildren universities, will within 10 years be the best university in South Africa judged by all known rational criteria. I am now left with eight years. Fortunately the building blocks are still there. I will make it happen.
The dividend the apartheid regime awarded us for the 1976 uprising was that for the first time, university personnel of all races were to be remunerated on the same scale as from 1977 – a meagre reward considering the investment cost of blood, sweat, tears (not only from tear gas), toil and torment.
Where were you on June 16 1976?
Professor Mncedisi Jordan was on the staff of the University of Fort Hare and Walter Sisulu University, teaching and supervising accountancy students. He now researches indigenous cultures and writes in his personal capacity.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Register (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Trending Now
Latest Videos