The Road to a New South Africa

by Emily Klooster

Soweto, South Africa is a place synonymous with freedom and hope. Rising out of a troubled past, the road to justice and equality has been long and difficult for Soweto, but a Christian school in one of the poorest areas of the city is partnering with Worldwide Christian Schools to achieve healing for the past, and hope for the future.

A township located 24 kilometers southwest of the capitol city of Johannesburg, Soweto was born out of the era of Apartheid - the enforced segregation of blacks and whites in South Africa from 1948-1994. As a result, over one million blacks were forced to live in Soweto and other surrounding townships while whites remained in the city.

Conditions in Soweto were terrible as families were separated and crowded into temporary shacks of corrugated tin. A lack of modern plumbing caused sewage problems and sickness to run rampant through the township. Soweto’s students were educated in substandard buildings run by the government, and only up to a level that would allow them to be black workers for white businesses.

A new act declaring that instruction be given in the white Afrikaans language was the final straw for the students of Soweto, who viewed Afrikaans as the language of the oppressor. On June 16, 1976 thousands of students staged a march in peaceful protest of school conditions. Marches such as this one were common at the time, and in an attempt to crack down, the government sent police forces in to quiet the students. Instead, 140 young people were killed by police and over 1,000 injured before the struggle ended on June 24.

Dale Dieleman, WCS field director for Africa reflected on the events that followed. “The losses were not in vain,” he said. “The students inspired their parents and other black adults to begin to openly challenge the Apartheid system on a much larger scale than ever before. World attention led to international sanctions by businesses…and even denominations severing ties with white South African churches.”

The events of June 16 in Soweto inspired one particular native of the town to become involved in South African politics in order to fight for justice in his country. “Eventually the Apartheid system was dismantled and the first free elections put Nelson Mandela into the presidency in 1994,” Dieleman said. Mandela eventually won a Nobel Prize for his part in the downfall of Apartheid.

Today, the township of Soweto has grown into a huge community of over a million people and is on its way to becoming a permanent city. Corrugated iron shacks are slowly turning into block housing. Soweto is becoming stronger and the need for education greater as the community begins to organize itself.