WeeklySA_AdminACTIVISM: Naledi High, described as the ‘epicentre’ of June 16 1976 student uprisings, marks its 60th anniversary of existence with an assembly of its luminaries…
By Jacob Mawela
Former students of Soweto’s Naledi High – many from the defining year of 1976 student uprisings – converged on the school’s grounds yesterday – to herald the institution’s Diamond Jubilee (60th) anniversary.
They descended upon the historic academic institution, dubbed “the Jewel of the West”, along with other dignitaries and the local community – purposefully, with spring in their step and knowing smiles flashed in lieu of acquaintances forged from the halcyon days of storm-barning student activism!
It was not any ordinary gathering. This one occasion hosted at the very school which sparked the watershed Soweto student uprisings of June 16 1976. Familiar household names were in abundance: ex-DG in the former president Thabo Mbeki administration, Reverend Frank Chikane, ex-Premier of the North West Province, Popo Molefe, Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration chairperson, Enos Ngutshane, ex-Soweto 11 trialist Sibongile Mkhabela, ex-ambassador and SANDF General Dan Mofokeng, political commentator Oupa Ngwenya.
With the common thread among the attendees being that they were the school’s alumni – with long-departed fellow former Soweto student leaders of the era, such as Khotso Seatlholo, Tsietsi Mashinini and Khehla Mthembu – conspicuous by their absence.
‘Twas not so much a moment of revel as a collective reflection on the struggle so many of the school’s past students waged against the might of the apartheid regime in the mid-1970s – and the malady of filibusters diminishing the gains through misdemeanours such as vandalism and theft of the institution’s property (furniture and Wi-Fi infrastructure).
Speaking at the occasion, Chikane – the cleric – didn’t withhold his disdain for criminal elements engaging in such anti-social conduct, switching to Sesotho to convey his dismay: “Bo tsotsi tshwanetse hore ba tsebe: mo, haho kenwe! (thugs ought to be prevailed upon that: here, there’s no leeway!)
Freewheeling down memory’s lane 56 years from when he started out as a pupil, he recalled coming back to teach maths and physics at the alma mater, a stint lasting a mere four months after the objections of the security police who ordered the then principal, “we don’t want this teacher here, get him out of here because he’s part of the problem!”
Inside a white marquee erected on a rugby field and adorned with a framed portrait of the school’s founding principal, Rudolph Mthimkhulu and emblems with the slogan: Work, Faith, Reward.
Making a clarion call for sponsorship sorely needed for repairs and additional infrastructure currently in a state of disrepair, the school’s governing body chairperson, Balate Mokoena, Mkhabela resounded: “I wished that we were intentional in countering the regime! I like to raise funds – we must commit. Let the children benefit!”
Another alumnus, Mlungisi Ntsele, took the visitors down a rather unceremonious memory lane to tragic piece of the school’s history, namely the Lourenco Marques Bus Disaster of July 1 1974, which claimed the lives of 10 students.
