Apartheid in South Africa

              During this semester’s symposium, I attended the session titled, “Contesting American Popular Culture.” This session included thesis discussions on Calamity Jane, Music Censorship and Barbie. All of these theses were interesting; however, by far was the presentation entitled, “Barbie: From Sex-toy to Controversial All-American Icon.” This presentation was largely about Barbie during the 1960s, from her creation to the controversies she began. Firstly, the girl who presented this topic was by far the most knowledgeable of the group. Her presentation was straight-forward and very clear and was also the most exciting to listen to. Secondly, this presentation included a plethora of sources and pictures, which kept the audience’s attention, as well as help the audience to visualize the main points of the presentation better. The girl who presented began by discussing her main question, which was whether or not Barbie was able to make an influence on young women, and her hypothesis for this was that Barbie had (and still does have) more influence than many celebrities. The girl presenting gave a brief history of the time period and how Barbie came to be made.

              The presentation continued with the discussion of Barbie being a role-model for girls during the 1960s – a time period which was replete with youth rebellion. Barbie was an inspiration to young women of the time with her 11 careers in the 1960s alone. She was also a reflection of the time period through her clothing, her family and her friends.

              The sources which were presented were very interesting and diverse. There were advertisements, magazines, commercials and short novels all about Barbie and the different things that she stood for. Barbie was also one of the first toys to be advertised. These different sources show how important Barbie was during the time and how well the presenter researched Barbie and the 1960s.

              By listing to these presentations, I realized that HIST485 topics can be fun, and can really be about anything.

My research paper is progressing well. Last week we turned in our final literature reviews. Through my literature review, I was able to realize the movement of historiography of my topic. Prior to 1990, most all of the literature works published mainly questioned the events leading up to the uprisings and the social needs of the time. I noted in my literature review that work published after 1990 tend to rely more on personal narratives from the uprisings and the specific individuals that participated. The reason for this historiogaphical shift can be attributed to the end of apartheid. With the end of apartheid, historians had more leeway to talk to those who participated in the uprisings and could research what happened and the consequences of the events. I plan on beginning my paper by discussing the reasons for the events and the timeline leading to Soweto using the secondary documents prior to 1990 as my main sources. Following this discussion I want to lead into the question of individual groups, specifically the Soweto Students Representative Council (SSRC) and the South African Students’ Movement (SASM), using mainly the secondary sources published after 1990. I hope to include my primary sources throughout my paper, while discussing both main questions.

The book review that I have chosen to look over is for the book, Year of Fire, Year of Ash. The Soweto Revolt: Roots of a Revolution?, by Baruch Hirson. While I am not using this book in my literature review, it is a very good source of information on the Soweto Uprising. I have not been able to locate this book to read it and use it for my paper. The review I have found on the book, written by Garlen D. Heitzman, discusses the book’s adequacies and inadequacies. This review includes background information of how Hirson’s book is organized. Within his book, Hirson discusses the history of education in South Africa as well as the history of youth politics in South African schools. The review focuses on the main points that the book details and how the author used his sources to demonstrate information. The book argues the importance and effectiveness of the Black Consciousness Movement and the role of the African National Congress in that movement. The review criticizes the book as lacking in its depiction of class struggle in the broader concept of South African capitalism. However, the review maintains that the book is a good source of information on the Soweto Uprising and the history of South African politics.

The topic of research paper has not changed from when I first began; however I have changed the questions that I wish to answer. These questions include, how and why did the youth of South Africa form themselves into organizations in the period before and during the Soweto uprisings? What and who influenced these youth organizations? I hypothesize that the students based their organizations upon the older generations’ societies that were formed previously. These students most likely formed the idea of peaceful riots because of several factors, such as the use of Afrikaans in schools, oppression by the white government and dissatisfaction with the educational system. I hope to look at two different youth organizations in particular, the South Africa Student’s Organization and the South African Student’s Movement. Some sources I have which reference one or both of these organizations are, Clive Glaser’s article, “We Must Infiltrate the Tsotsis’: School Politics and Youth Gangs in Soweto,” Humphery Glass’s article, “The Struggle for South Africa,” and Nozipho J. Diesko’s article, “The Origins and Development of the South African Student’s Movement (SASM): 1968-1976.” I hope to use these articles to better understand these student’s organizations and better answer my research questions.

             After my meeting with Professor Harris, I was able to formulate the main ideas behind my research paper. I decided that I was more interested in the human side of the uprising i.e. the people’s perspective of the event. The major question I would like to answer is, “How was the Soweto Uprising planned and carried out?” Other questions I hope to address are, “What exactly happened on June 16, 1976?” “Why did the students plan the uprising?” “How did the students prepare and plan the revolt?” “What were perspectives of the revolts from countries outside of Africa?” New developments with my hypothesis include that there were certain youth organizations, the South African Students Movement, South African Students’ Organisation, and the Soweto Students Representative Council who were leaders of the uprising and who planned the march to Orlando. Also, students were marching in order to make it known to the South African government that they did not want to learn through the language of Afrikaans.

         My research so far has not been very fruitful, I searched among the books at the library that deal with apartheid and most contain only a few paragraphs about the uprising. I was able to find one audio clip of one man’s (Oupa Molota) perspective of the momentous day. I hope to find more primary sources that deal with members of the different youth organizations. Jack Bales has been a huge help with my research; he was able to find several articles on Soweto, many of which provide excellent viewpoints of the uprising. I’ve been able to locate several New York Times articles from 1977 which will help provide perspective outside of South Africa.

       When choosing a topic for my research paper, I was very indecisive. I brainstormed several possible topics, ranging from the history of Swiss neutrality to the partition of Ireland. However, the topic of apartheid in South Africa was one topic that overwhelming caught my interest. I have not learned previously much about apartheid, just a basic background provided by American schooling. In class I volunteered this topic as an example and with the help of the class, I was able to narrow down the broad topic of apartheid in South Africa to smaller topics. This smaller topics included researching a particular person, studying a turning point of the period and it’s consequences, focusing on a specific time period or year, and creating a type of micro history by researching a small township as a reflection of a greater movement.

       After preliminary research when trying to formulate my main question for my research paper, I read a short explanation of the Soweto uprising. I’d never heard of this monumental event before, but just from reading the explanation, I decided I wanted to formulate my question around this important event. I could not believe that I’d never before even heard of such an enormous event in South African history. 

       The main question that I will address in my paper is, “How did the Soweto Uprising change the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa?” I hypothesize that the Soweto uprising was a major turning point for the anti-apartheid movement, bringing the fight against apartheid to South Africa. I also think that this movement really brought the image of apartheid to the rest of the world and sparked western influence in the movement.