In 1975, the self-confidence of the apartheid state was at its zenith. The draining decade of war in Namibia and Angola, of sporadic civil war and states of emergency in South Africa — all of that still lay ahead. Apartheid seemed impregnable, and the release of Nelson Mandela just 15 years later was entirely unthinkable.
The ideology of separate development, with each “nation” exercising political rights in its own territory, was still being advanced with enthusiasm. It produced absurdities scarcely believable today.
In 1974, a “multinational” football tournament was held at the Rand Stadium in Joburg, contested by four teams: white, black, Indian and coloured. The matches generated great interest and were played in front of large but fully segregated crowds (50% white, 50% “non-white”); they went off peacefully.
This kind of passive acceptance of apartheid disappeared on June 16 1976, when 15,000 children in Soweto gathered to protest a government plan that half their subjects would be taught in Afrikaans. Police opened fire, the violence escalated and hundreds of children were wounded or killed.
As Mandela recalled: “The events of that day reverberated in every town and township in South Africa. Suddenly the young people of South Africa were fired with the spirit of protest and rebellion.”
The National Party government never did regain its confidence, though it pretended. June 16 marked the beginning of the countdown to its loss of power.
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