Previously untold story of UWC students’ baptism of fire and political awakening in the 1976 revolt

Enrico Pedro. Photo: Supplied

6 Sep 2024

The year 1976 was monumental in its manifestation of anti-apartheid protests and how they played out in different communities. A new memoir recounts the perspective of coloured students.

Mention June 1976 and one immediately thinks of Soweto and how the action there changed South Africa’s direction during that year of fire and upheaval. However, there are sub-narratives about the 1976 revolt that have particular significance for other regions and specific population groups. The student resistance at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) is such an account.

Enrico Pedro, the author of Act and Advance!, was worried that the story of UWC student action during that pivotal year remained largely untold. One of the driving forces for his writing the book was that “this formative event should be chronicled in its many manifestations”. It was his act of “memory against forgetting”, he said.

The book begins with Pedro, who lived in a residence at UWC at the time, learning about the Soweto protest on 16 June with interest, but having no sense that it would affect his life. Initially, there was no solidarity response from UWC students. The mid-year break was looming, and groups of students were already heading to train stations for the long trip home.

Low political awareness

But after their return, the students gathered in a lecture hall for a meeting called to devise UWC’s response to events in Soweto. The students, including Pedro, were generally not politicised, reflecting the low political awareness in their communities. They had no idea what to expect. Throughout Act and Advance!, alongside activists’ views, Pedro sheds light on the perspective of ordinary students.

The Student Representative Council and its president led the call for a response. Pockets of other students were vocal, pushing for action. From the floor, there were “moving anti-apartheid and black consciousness speeches”. Pedro admits: “The type of decisions and discussions had me, at times, scared, to say the least.”

The initial decisions were to hold a week of symposium and boycott classes. The authorities began taking antagonistic action on the Sunday before the boycott and symposium started, with the rector announcing the suspension of classes. This decision galvanised the students to continue their protest into a second week.

The detention of a leader of the South African Students’ Organisation stoked their militancy. A few days into the weeklong boycott, tensions escalated, leading to violence. The mass of students voted for action, peaceful but militant. They marched to the university gates with placards, singing chants.

At the same time, against a backdrop of general opposition to the use of violence by most students, isolated incidents of arson occurred, and a university office block was gutted. The police responded with force, deploying teargas and wielding truncheons. The crackdown took a heavy toll, with numerous students being hospitalised.

Student leaders detained

In the weeks that followed, the protests continued. Security police detained iterations of student leaders until there were virtually no formal leaders left on campus. Students spread their message to communities, “mobilising the Western Cape”.

But by September the boycott dissipated as students returned to campus after the third break. The violence, repression, anxieties about spies and detention of leaders had taken their toll. On that first day of the last term, armed policemen or soldiers were everywhere, even at entrances to lecture halls.

Enrico Pedro, the author of Act and Advance! (Photo: Supplied)

Pedro records that “most of the student leadership was in jail or did not surface on campus, and there was not a trace of the disruption squad”. Many students reasoned that “it was important to complete their studies” and that “closing the university” made no sense. They began to prepare for exams.

The situation left Pedro discouraged at the time: “I could not believe that victory was not ours.” Nevertheless, the gains were far-reaching. Liberation ideas from the symposium spread to various parts of the country, including far-flung rural communities, and people were less afraid to oppose apartheid. There was, by 1977, infinitely greater support for anti-apartheid work among UWC students.

The stage was set for continued political work – for support for community and labour struggles as well as the transformation of UWC. More importantly, the stage was set for a dynamic contribution to the anti-apartheid mobilisation of the 1980s.

As stated on the back cover of Act and Advance!, quoting Pedro: “The UWC protests marked the advent of mass political response in the Western Cape. The students’ decisive action advanced the local struggle, as well as the national Struggle.”

Multifocal perspective

Pedro’s text is appealing in that he takes a multifocal perspective. In addition to student views of the events, he conveys some of the official views at the time. The university’s registrar claimed there was never a plan to hold a symposium – it was just a cover for militant actions aimed at closing UWC; a police captain claimed that only 150 to 300 students attended the mass meetings.

He is not afraid to show the tension between communities and the students. For example, he reports that students wondered how they would “justify” their actions to their parents during the home break.

Pedro tells of his “explosion” after his father expressed concern that he was not attending classes. He accused his dad of complacency: “I indicated that, since he and his brothers did nothing, the students of my time had to liberate South Africa.”

Pedro gives due consideration to moderate views alongside more radical ones. One student is quoted as saying that he “opposed class disruptions”. Pedro says, referring to the torching of a building: “Personally, I could not participate in such an act of destruction.”

Another student recounts how he “did not believe it was in anyone’s interest to permanently stay away or close the university”. This student’s position was that “students from the ranks of the oppressed needed education and… apartheid institutions were the only places where advanced education could be obtained”. Such views no doubt informed the return to classes.

Pedro directly addresses the issue of Afrikaans. He explains how student leaders at UWC realised that “mobilisation around Afrikaans would not excite most students since it was their mother tongue”.

Soweto activation

However, it wasn’t difficult for UWC students to make the connection with the Soweto activation because it soon became clear that “Afrikaans as a medium of instruction was no longer the only reason for the revolt”. In the book, various students who were involved at the time reflect on how the language was understood.

For one, Soweto ’76 represented a revolt against Afrikaner Afrikaans rather than a rebellion against the language spoken in communities and by the descendants of slaves. For another, Afrikaans deservedly became a target precisely because the “government high-handedly forced the language on the children”.

This kind of detail and texture enriches Pedro’s recounting of events. The information was meticulously gathered through interviews and is further supported by archival sources such as newspaper reports and court records. Unfortunately, Pedro succumbed to Covid-19 in January 2021 before completing the book.

Hein Willemse, a seasoned academic, stepped in to build upon Pedro’s work, helping to align the facts and synthesise the conclusions drawn from chapters.

The book is a powerful addition to existing information on this significant historical turning point.

The reader will gain a deeper insight into the intense resistance in the Western Cape during a later period, the 1980s, and the emphatic opposition to ethnic political representation in so-called coloured communities. DM

Act and Advance! is published by Abrile Doman Publishers (2024).

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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Low political awareness

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Multifocal perspective

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