By Zamuxolo Matiwana
This week, Rhodes University organised two events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre. The first event was titled “A tragic turning-point: remembering Sharpeville fifty years on” and the second “50th commemoration of the Sharpeville Massacre”.
The commemoration aimed to inspire a personal awakening of the protection of human rights and remind students and staff members that South Africa was liberated from the shackles of the apartheid regime through bloodshed and sheer resilience.
The events follow the African National Congress Youth League president Julius Malema’s speech at a commemorative event in Mafikeng on 22 March which resulted in a squabble between the PAC and ANC about who led the Sharpeville massacre. Malema was reported on Mail & Guardian online as saying, “The Sharpeville uprising of 1960 during which police shot and killed 69 people protesting against pass laws was organised by the ANC and “hijacked” by the PAC”.
In response, the PAC spokesperson Lehlohonolo Shale reportedly said, “The PAC history has been written in blood and no amount of cheap rhetoric shall erase it”.
Addressing the audience, Head of Department of History, Professor Paul Maylam shed light on the Sharpeville massacre and said, “In December 1959 both the ANC and PAC announced that they would run anti-pass campaigns the following year. The ANC’s was planned to begin on 31 March. The PAC was keen to pre-empt the ANC and settled on the date of 21 March."
“Robert Sobukwe, the PAC leader, formally announced on Friday 18 March that the campaign would begin the following Monday, when people would assemble at various points and surrender their passes so as to deliberately court arrest. In Sharpeville PAC activists at once set about mobilising support. ANC leaders in the township spoke out against the PAC campaign, fearing it would get out of hand; and some workers were reluctant to join, afraid of losing their jobs.”
Prof Maylam further said there are different versions explaining the massacre depending on particular ideological perspectives or political agendas. According to Prof Maylam, the first version is the narrative presented by apartheid’s apologists, the second version is that according to the liberation movement’s narrative a crowd were engaged in a peaceful protest against pass laws and third version has been called the “massacre as mistake” theory.
The Sharpeville massacre had wide ramifications and a significant impact in the apartheid government at the time. Prof Maylam argued that the apartheid state was rocked, giving rise to a real sense of crisis. “In the longer term Sharpeville was deeply significant. It internationalised the struggle against apartheid,” he said.
He ended his talk by reiterating that the recent squabble between the ANCYL president and PAC that both the Sharpeville township and the memory of the massacre are sites of contestation in the South African political arena. “Only last month there were burning tyres in the streets of Sharpeville as its residents engaged in service delivery protests. There was one complaint that the ANC town council only shows interest in Sharpeville on 21 March, while it is neglected for the other 364 days of the year. And PAC leaders claim that the ANC has appropriated the memory of Sharpeville for its own political advantage at the expense of the PAC,” said Prof Maylam.
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Pic: Prof Paul Maylam.