Open defiance by ‘76 youth

ROOM 8 in the 70s was one of 15 classrooms at Naledi High School. June 8, 1976 was a normal day for me in Room 8, which incidentally is presently my classroom as a teacher. Until the Special Branch came to pick up Enos Ngutshane, I was ignorant of the politics of the day. Politics was for the debating team and Student Christian Movement members, so I believed.

The buzz around Ngutshane’s incident with the Special Branch instigated curiosity and later passion for politics for my friends and I. Information about political activities was a tightly kept secret among the inner circle of the movement for fear of leakage of information to the police.

What I remember about June 8, 1976 is the sudden commotion that was caused by a burning police Volkswagen Beetle in the school yard. On enquiring we found out that it was an act of retaliation by the students. This took us by surprise. Until then everything around us told us that the nationalist government and its officials were all powerful and all knowing. Demigods never speak unless spoken to.

For the first time in history we witnessed open defiance of the regime by young people, bringing us to an awakening of recognising the power we had as the youth. Ngutshane is one of the youths of 1976 who refused to stand in the flow of the status quo of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.

Today he is general manager at Prasa Rail. A proud father and husband, he and his wife Ann continue the struggle to give meaning to our democracy.