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Youth and the Politics of Generational Memories : the Soweto Uprising In Revue éditée par le Laboratoire d'ethnologie et de sociologie comparative 47 | 2020 : Jeunes en question(s) Youth and the politics of generational memories: The Soweto uprising in South Africa Jeunesses d’Afrique du Sud et mémoire générationnelle des émeutes de Soweto (1976) S#$%&'$( )*+(,-(&.(& https://doi.org/10.4000/ateliers.12436 Résumés English 0ran1ais 2his article deals 3ith the individual histories of local politicians and activists in urban South Africa Cape 2o3n), in 3hich the past is situated in relation to the present. It loo:s at those 3ho 3ere youths during apartheid and 3ho are no3 involved in urban politics. 2his article sheds light on ho3 members of the historical generation of So3eto have produced :no3ledge, and ho3 these textured experiences have steered them to3ards certain political commitments. 2hrough their stories, it can be seen ho3 the So3eto generation is commonly ta:en to symbolise the outbrea: of the youth rebellion in 1976. 2a:ing the narrative of the So3eto generation from apartheid to democracy as a point of departure, this article suggests that a historicising, gendered perspective is vital to understanding the continuities and discontinuities in the speeches, representations, and rationales for action in youth activism and local politics in contemporary South Africa. 2he diverse 3ays of experiencing and remembering So3eto not only structured path3ays for specific actors, but became part of the symbolic repertoire of politics as such in South Africa. Cet article traite de la biographie d’hommes politiques et de militants en Afrique du Sud urbaine Le Cap), dont le passé personnel est situé dans sa relation A l’actualité. Il s'intéresse A ceux qui étaient Beunes A l'époque de l'Apartheid et sont maintenant engagés dans la politique municipale. Cet article met en lumiCre la fa1on dont les membres de la D génération de So3eto E ont produit des connaissances et comment ces expériences marquantes les ont poussés A certains engagements politiques. F travers leurs histoires, on peut voir comment la génération So3eto est considérée comme le symbole de la rébellion de la Beunesse en 1976. Prenant comme point de départ le récit de la génération So3eto, de la période de l'apartheid A l’instauration de la démocratie, cet article suggCre qu'une perspective A la fois historique et genrée est essentielle pour comprendre les continuités et les discontinuités dans les discours, les représentations et les Bustifications de l'activisme des Beunes et des politiques locales dans l’Afrique du Sud contemporaine. Les diverses fa1ons d'expérimenter et de se souvenir de Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS) URL: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-2-8drogya7fxql8 So3eto n'ont pas seulement structuré les parcours d’acteurs spécifiques, mais sont devenues partie intégrante du répertoire symbolique de la politique dans l’Afrique du Sud contemporaine. Entuées d’index Mots-clés : émeutes de So3eto , genre , Beunesse , mémoire générationnelle , politique urbaine Keywords : Cape 2o3n , gender , generational memories , South Africa , So3eto riots , urban politics , youth Géographique : Afrique du Sud , Le Cap Texte intégual 1 2his article deals 3ith the individual histories of local politicians and activists in urban South Africa in 3hich the past is situated in relation to the present. 1 2his historicising approach sho3s ho3 social and political events experienced by youths during apartheid are constructed and remembered. It sheds light on ho3 members of the HSo3eto 2 generationI have produced :no3ledge, and ho3 these textured experiences have steered them to3ards certain political commitments. 2hese members’ narratives provide further insights into Hthe 3ider society or social segment of 3hich they are also JaK partI Arnold and Llac:burn, 2005: 4N, quoted in Jeffrey and Dyson, 2008). 1. Apartheid, post-apartheid, and the “Soweto generation” 2 Ouring my eighteen months of field3or: bet3een 2005 and 2007) 3ith 3omen and men engaged in local politics in Mitchells Plain and Rhayelitsha, t3o adBacent former to3nships located in the City of Cape To3n, remembering the colonial history of apartheid proved essential. N In tal:ing to these local politicians and activists about their current political and societal engagements, and by observing informal and formal political events during the ethnographic research, it emerged that they often lin:ed their presentSday activities to the past, particularly referencing their experiences as yopths dpring apartheid . A biographical approach and event analysis became important methods for understanding the gendered patterns of local politics. 4 2his study elucidates ho3 local politicians and activists have situated themselves 3ith respect to salient events and ho3 they use retrospection as a rationale to explain their present agency as 3omen and men. 5 In this context, urban politicians and activists explained their commitment through memories of their youth, mostly 3ith reference to specific violent events of the apartheid regime, such as: the Sharpeville massacre, 3hen on March 21, 1960, South African police began shooting at a cro3d of people protesting the pass la3s in the to3nship of Sharpeville 0ran:el, 2001)T the So3eto uprising in 1976, 3hen police opened fire on pupils protesting the use of Afri:aans as a medium of instruction in the to3nship of So3eto Rhulu, 198NT Laines, 2007)T and the United Oemocratic 0ront Movement launched in Mitchells Plain in 198N, 3hich acted as an alliance of organisations and people across classes and racialised classifications protesting against the apartheid regime Dawn Joprnal of Umkhonto we Swize , 198NT See:ings, 2000). 2he 3ay these politicians and activists described their previous and current political engagements 3as significantly shaped by their presentSday perspectives. Retrospection “conditions the selection of memories, the temporal and thematic lin:age of memories, and the type of representation of the remembered experiencesI Rosenthal, 2004: 50). 2he past is saved in memories, from 3hich experiences are converted into :no3ledge and integrated into specific stoc:s of :no3ledge Spiegel, 2010: N9). People har: bac: to their respective stoc:s of :no3ledge to select relevant meaning, meaning 3hich is lin:ed both to current events and to earlier periods in their lives SchVtW and Luc:mann, 197NT Rosenthal, 2004). 3 Leing young during apartheid meant experiencing forced removals according to housing provisions that differed for soScalled Coloureds and Llac: Africans, suffering discrimination at school, being forced underground, imprisonment, rape, experiencing the criminalisation of activism, and being on the runXi.e. it entailed Hterritories of differenceI Escobar, 2008). In Cape 2o3n, apartheid legislation forced people out of central urban areas designated for HYhites onlyI and into suburban peripheral regions, i.e. the area locally :no3n as the Cape 0lats. Leginning in the 1960s, people 3ere racially segregated into soScalled Coloured and Llac: African to3nships Yestern, 1996). In contrast 3ith classified Llac: Africans, people classified as Coloured received preferential treatment from the state in terms of education, housing, labour, and social cash transfers. Ouring my research, it became clear that in South African society today, the sense of belonging to a particular grouping/collectivity remains informed by 3hat the apartheid political system had hierarchically categorised as Yhite, Coloured, or Llac: African. 2hese categories continue to be salientT they function as mar:ers to maintain and reproduce historicallySrooted racialised, gendered, cultural, and social boundaries. In this respect, I am guided by authors 3ho have pointed out that government ascriptions about being Coloured have not only been imposed on society but also negotiated 3ithin it, and therefore should not be conceived as homogenous or static entities Erasmus, 1998, 2001T Salo, 2004T Adhi:ari, 2005T Jensen, 2008). 4 2his article adds a ne3 perspective to studies on the Hmaster narrativeI of the So3eto uprisings, 3hich have argued that the So3eto uprisings 3ere institutionalised by the African National Congress ANC) )overnment in the interests of supporting nationSbuilding processes e.g. Laines, 2007). It builds upon studies that have focused solely on the experience of So3eto and those in the former Llac: African to3nships in and around Johannesburg Lennell and Monyo:olo, 1994T Ndlovu, 1998). 6 It also complements research on youth and generational connections in South Africa and other African countries Loesen, 2008T Reynolds Yhyte et al., 2008), 3hich has matured from conceiving the youth of the apartheid period as a Hlost generationI Cruise O’Lrien, 1996T See:ings, 1996 a) to characterising them as HAIOS orphans, child soldiers, disaffected and marginaliWed young men, and sexually active teenage girls J3hoK represented the dangers and tribulations of a historical generation at a troubled conBuncture of Africa’s historyI Reynolds Yhyte et al., 2008: 1). 5 Among local politicians and activists in Cape 2o3n, the HSo3eto generationI is commonly seen as symbolic of those 3ho experienced the outbrea: of the youth rebellion in 1976. 0or those of this generation, the outbrea: of the youth rebellion gave rise to a differentiation in their politicisation and political path3ays, and began to shape the diverse landscapes of informal and formal politics that one finds in South Africa today. 2he biographical perspectives presented in this paper sho3 different gendered
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