The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) commemorated the 16 June 1976 Uprisings at the Orlando Communal Hall in Soweto on Tuesday.
The following is an abridged version of the key note address delivered by the party’s National Organiser Mbuyiselo Kantso:
We are here symbolically because the PAC was founded in this very hall on 6 April 1959 by men and women who felt that this country must be liberated.
We come from a background of people who were conquered, dispossessed, and colonised and I therefore want you to know that the people who were dispossessed of their land are not the people of Asia or the people of Europe; it is the African people who were dispossessed of their land.
Having endured the brutality of the people who tortured us, maimed us and exiled us, arrested us and showed us all the ugly sides of human life, we have a duty to liberate ourselves.
The evolution of our struggle can be traced right back to the kings, chiefs and tribes who fought against the colonisers.
The colonisers then mounted their efforts with a mission to kill the elderly among the tribes because by so doing they would be destroying the collective memory of the entire tribe.
The strategy of the colonisers was as follows:
“If you want to hit them hard send the soldier, and thereafter bring them a missionary and later a trader.”
And you must bear in mind that the white people will never work against one another and it is therefore unreasonable for anyone to expect white people who, like Joe Slovo, came from Eastern Europe to come and work in the mines to get champions of our struggle against the white apartheid regime.
The difference between us and those white mine workers is that they were exploited at the mines while we were colonised; our land had been taken; our culture had been destroyed and our languages had been attacked and our struggles are therefore not the same.
Those white mine workers belong to the class of the coloniser and how then can a coloniser and a colonised be in the same struggle formation?
How can a dispossesser and a dispossessed belong to the same organisation?
This is the question which led to the formation of the PAC as a wholly Africanist movement that caters for Africans who pay allegiance to Africa.
The June 16 uprisings were part of the ongoing struggle of the African people after the settler regime banned liberation movements in 1960.
Though the ANC insists that the uprisings were just spontaneous and not planned by anyone, reality suggests that several people were arrested and subjected to a marathon-like trial known as the Bethal Treason Trial from 1977.
A total of 18 PAC members including party stalwart Zephania Mothopeng were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment at the end of the trial in 1979 after being found guilty of acts of terrorism related to the 1976 uprisings.
Now the question is: are we celebrating June 16 the proper way?
The answer is “No.”
The way we are celebrating June 16 is actually shameful and does not really commemorate the lives of the fallen June 16 heroes.
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