Reading

Mr.Philip Kgosana – Summary by Barbara Miller, Boston College High School

On the morning of April 2, 2005, the day our group would be visiting the Sharpeville Massacre Memorial sites, we were honored to listen to Mr. Philip Kgosana, former head of the regional Pan African Council (PAC). In 1960, days after the massacre, Mr. Kgosana led a very large anti-pass demonstration from the Langa township to the Cape Town police headquarters.

At our breakfast on Saturday, Mr. Kgosana gave us a detailed picture of the conditions of apartheid that preceded the massacre, a blood bath where sixty-nine unarmed Africans were killed and one hundred eighty people wounded.

The journey to the massacre was over 150 years in the making. In 1809, the colonials moved into South Africa, initially the Dutch, then the English. Being the minority, their concerns centered around control. Under the vision of Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, a long history of racial discrimination and oppression of the non-white population was enforced.

By 1913, the white government passed the Land Act depriving the blacks of 87% of the territory in the land of their birth. In 1923, the Urban Areas Act created African slums in “native locations.” The Color Ban Act in 1926 banned Africans from practicing skilled labor. Ten years later, Africans were removed from the common voters Roll. Through much of the 20th century, all blacks were forced to carry pass cards under penalty of jail. Twenty-seven different regulations restricted travel, work, and taxes while controlling every aspect of a black person’s life. Men and women could be stopped at any time. If any irregularity was found, the consequence was jail. In one year, 1957, just three years before the Sharpeville protest, 368,000 people were stopped and arrested for pass violations, either individually or during raids where areas were swept. The purpose, according to Mr. Kgosana was not the requirement of the pass for identification, but the brutal administration of the pass permits as a means of control. Given the rise in arrests, a demand for more jails arose. As a solution, Farmers were encouraged to build prisons on their farms, thus channeling cheap labor into the work force.

The Bantu Education program also worked toward the same goal. Blacks could only attend schools that retained them in simple tasks to assure that they not be a part of the developing world.

Gradually with the organization of the ANC and the PAC, blacks began to protest, but it was not until the simple unarmed protest in a walk to the police station on a day in March of 1960 that the world finally noticed the injustice of apartheid, not only in Sharpeville, but in all of South Africa.

Today, ten years into a new freedom, Mr. Kgosana believes that the South African people have to be reoriented. After so many years of being deprived of land and skills, people need to learn the value of the land; children need to experience that food comes from the soil. Leadership is needed to channel youth to be responsible. Leadership needs to communicate clearly a vision and a plan similar to methods within Botswana. Strong moral leaders need to challenge the government with impunity against corruption, censorship, and patronage. A government is transparent and outspoken must be in place for the years to come.

Mr. Kgosana concluded by stating four of the major problems facing the new South Africa today:
· the question of land redistribution
· the rise in crime
· the embarrassment and tragedy of AIDS
· the dangers inherent in Zimbabwe’s current crisis