Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-23

MURPHY MOROBE: My involvement, politically, had actually begun as early as 1972 and the South African Student Movement, SASEM was actually formed in 1972, but I formally joined SASEM in 1973.  My involvement in SASEM, at the time in 1972, 1973, it was a time when many leading black activists in the community were being harassed and detained.  Some of the major banning orders of activists were actually effected in 1973 and, if you recall, at that time people like Abraham Tiro were actually killed by a parcel bomb in Botswana around that period.
 I joined SASEM which had been formed earlier because before that in 1969 you had the formation of the South African Student Movement, Student Organisation, SASO by people like Steve Biko and Barney Pityana and with SASEM being formed I then joined SASEM because at the time my own political consciousness, having lived in the township, having seen some of the difficulties that we were living in in those areas, it was quite clear to me then at an early age of 16 years that SASEM did hold some prospects for my own development as an individual.  
 Among the aims of SASEM was the taking up of issues.  SASEM wanted to take up issues effecting students and issues that were relevant to the black students at high school and secondary school level.  We felt that this had to be done 
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through ongoing efforts to organise students to join SASEM.  Of importance for SASEM and to SASEM at the time was that we had a very strong belief in the basicness of black consciousness and black consciousness and the forerunner and the innovators of the concept were people like Steve Biko.  That was quite instrumental in forming our own opinions in actually moulding our perspective because one of the things that black consciousness wanted to do was to actually teach us, as black people, to be proud of ourselves.  It actually was teaching us to have confidence in ourselves and then it was teaching us, as well, that there is nothing wrong in being black in this country and we have to be proud of it and that, at the time, the basic approach of SASEM and the Black Consciousness Organisation, we actually focused on what we call Conscintisation.  
 Conscintisation was a process whereby we sought to educate those of our colleagues and our communities about the fact of existence in South Africa.  We wanted to fight against what apartheid and the apartheid Government was doing in that the apartheid Government had led us to a point, especially if you recall after the events of 1963, the arrest of Nelson Mandela and others, were there was an atmosphere of absolute fear and terror in the townships and in the communities.  What that resulted in over time was a sense that, you know, for a black to be in South Africa, the system wanted you to have an inferiority complex whenever you saw a white person, you should always react as if you are seeing God.  I think that from our side we felt that SASEM and the Black Consciousness ethos and theory was a very important one because it said we have to fight against that, we have to actually fight against this inferiority 
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complex because, as you know, biblically we are all supposed to be born in the image of God and all of us are supposed to be equal.  I think that formed our approach.  
 I grew up, myself, in a Church environment.  I was brought up in the AME Church.  We prayed, we learnt about all these things and, clearly, what we were seeing was not from, our point of view, in accordance with those scriptures.  SASEM then and SASEM understood that the white minority Government which we called at that time The System, had chosen to use education as an instrument to perpetuate and inculcate in us the notion that whites were being superior to blacks in South Africa.  In fact by the time that I reached high school there were clear signs all around that some of Verwoerd's west designs for the black child were already beginning to take their toll in our society.  I think, in a sense, the SASEM was an organisation that came up at the right time because at that point with the formation of SASO for the university students, we had in fact a close collaboration not only with SASO, but with the Black People's Convention of which people like Seth Skoopa, Aubrey Mkwena, in fact, were part of the leadership of that organisation.  For us then we had a system of organisations that interacted and that offered close collaboration with each other.  Later on we also had to form another youth organisation which we called the National Youth Organisation, NAYO whose leaders in the main were subjected to a trial for terrorism in 1975 up to 1976.  So, by and large, what I am saying then is that as opposed to apartheid we sought to subjicate blacks and make us feel inferior.  The theory of black consciousness sought to actually counteract that and put blacks in a position where they can
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walk tall and be proud of themselves and feel that they themselves have a right in this country because, after all, it is the land of our birth and we strongly believe that the whites, as in fact, foreigners had come into this country and imposed, in fact, a way of life that we strongly believed was foreign to our way of live.  Through education they found an instrument through which they could impose that.
 I think, if you recall historically, it was our parents in the 1950's that actually were amongst the first to take action against Bantu eduction because in those times they pulled out their children from the schools in protest against Bantu education, but because of repression, detentions and killings in those days, even, you know, the struggle sort of lapsed into a period that most people became to call, you know, a lull in the struggle until such time in the 1960's the philosophy of black consciousness arose.  I think that even that philosophy has to be understood in the context of not only South African events, but world events for that matter.  What blacks were going through in America, you know, was a very important formal input into the development of this theory.  Also at that time there were general student uprisings.  Not only, you know, in America, but also in France and a number of areas where the war in Vietnam by America was generating a lot of opposition and we came up SASEM then, you know, riding after that development.

YASMINE SOOKA: It is quite interesting because there are many writers who claim that, in a sense, the ANC was the people who benefitted the most from June the 16th and because of that I pose this question to you.  At that time was the
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Black Consciousness Movement, the arising of black consciousness, was that linked to any particular political movement or liberation organisation at the time?