Honouring Belgravia High's political legacy

Published Sep 28, 2016

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When Wayde van Niekerk spectacularly broke a 17-year record to win the 400m final at the Rio Olympics, some media drew attention to his mother, Odessa Swarts, who set provincial and national records years earlier.

The system of apartheid denied her the chance to represent her country at the time. She participated in non-racial, anti-apartheid sport under the banner of the South African Council on Sport (Sacos).

Little, if any, mention was made of the fact that Swarts was a student and star athlete at Ned Doman High School in Athlone. Swarts shared a school with Shaun Magmoed who, in 1985, was killed in the Trojan Horse Massacre.

Belgravia High School, a Sacos affiliate during the apartheid years, turns 60 years old this year.

For several successive years, Belgravia High produced outstanding athletes who dominated in both track and field events and, like Swarts, they could never realise their full potential because of 
apartheid.

The role of sport in the struggle for South Africa’s liberation is well documented. And those schools that participated under the umbrella of Sacos certainly played an important role.

Although Belgravia High excelled at athletics and in academics during the apartheid years, its greatest legacy during the 1980s was a political contribution, together with schools in the surrounding areas.

Belgravia High’s 60th anniversary coincides with it being 30 years since the student movement of 1985/6.

Belgravia High School combined with students at Alexander Sinton and Rylands high schools to form the initial nucleus of the Athlone Students Action Committee (Asac), a committee that played a co-ordinating role during the student protests in the broader Athlone area.

Asac later expanded to include several Athlone-based schools, including Spes Bona, Athlone High, Bridgetown High, Ned Doman, Garlandale, Oaklands High and Groenvlei High.

Heading the call to render the apartheid state ungovernable, the Athlone area became one of four hot spots in Cape Town during the 1985/6 struggle against apartheid education.

The other hot spots were Bonteheuwel, Mitchells Plain and Gugulethu. As resistance intensified, the desperation of the government of the day increased.

The police started to adopt ambush tactics against street protesters by surreptitiously concealing themselves in vehicles and in the midst of students gathered at various sites.

In several instances, police opened fire without warning. Using this tactic, the police fired indiscriminately with automatic shotguns at a crowd gathered in Thornton Road in Athlone, and killed three youngsters and injured many more.

This incident became known as the Trojan Horse Massacre. On this anniversary of Belgravia High School, its alumni, students and staff have decided to commemorate the Trojan Horse Massacre as part of their 60th anniversary.

In doing so, the school will also commemorate a similarly styled 
tactic used in Crossroads a day after the Trojan Horse Massacre when police killed Mabhuti Fatman and Mengxwane Mali.

The Trojan Horse Memorial in Thornton Road in Athlone is a vivid reminder of the struggles of the 1980s. When the students and former students of Belgravia High gather on October 14, 2016, we intend to honour the memory of Shaun Magmoed, Jonathan Claasen and Michael Miranda, the three youths who lost their lives during that tragic incident.

But the event will also be used to draw attention to the larger context in which this tragedy took place. The Athlone students came out in solidarity with students in 36 
magisterial districts in South Africa who were subjected to a State of Emergency.

The students of Athlone demanded an end to the State of Emergency. The Athlone students themselves started to have peaceful marches in and around their schools, awareness programmes and peaceful mass rallies.

A unique feature of these struggles was the conscious efforts to transgress the artificial racial divides of apartheid. Perhaps, because of this bold challenge, the actions of students were met with unprecedented state violence.

A turning point in the protests that shifted the schools movement towards a larger community struggle occurred when Dr Allan Boesak called for a march to Pollsmoor Prison to demand the release of Nelson Mandela.

On August 28, 1985, thousands gathered at the Hewat Training College and proceeded to Kromboom Road.

The procession was led by religious leaders. The police allowed the crowd three minutes to disperse.

Refusal to do so resulted in an act of police brutality that saw the hospitalisation of religious leaders and the arrest of countless others.

Among them was Belgravia High student Faizal Slamang. He opted to march as close as possible alongside religious leaders, believing that his fractured and bandaged ankle, and proximity to religious leaders, would spare him arrest.

That was not to be.

The political temperature was raised further when events such as the symbolic Burial of Apartheid was held at Belgravia High on September 4, 1985, an event that attracted not only students from other schools, but also adult political activists, community leaders and trade union leaders.

More than 5 000 people gathered at Belgravia High that day.

A Casspir flattened the fence and the police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the school, dispersing the crowd.

This provoked an angry response from students, who started to erect barricades and engage in running street battles with the police.

In Belgravia Road, barbed wire was stretched across the street. This event became known as the Battle of Belgravia.

Thereafter, the general atmosphere of defiance intensified to the extent that two days later, on September 6, 1985, the minister of Coloured Affairs (in the House of Representatives), Carter “Caspir” Ebrahim, issued a directive that certain schools should be closed in Cape Town.

As a student body, Asac resolved to reopen schools, bringing about a tense stand-off on September 17, 1985 when parents, students and some teachers symbolically reopened schools.

At a neighbouring school, Alexander Sinton, this led to an event dubbed the Siege of Sinton, where the deputy principal, Mr Swart, and others were arrested.

The student battles served as catalysts for community protests, and protests in the streets of Athlone continued unabated.

In their bid to quell the unrest, the police devised ambush tactics that ultimately led to the Trojan Horse Massacre.

Rather than instilling fear, it led to further outrage on the streets.

Two weeks after the Trojan Horse killings, on October 26, 1985, the State of Emergency was extended to the Western Cape, with midnight raids during the night of October 25/26, 1985 resulting in mass detentions of predominantly UDF affiliates.

Two days later, on October 28, 1985, the army besieged Belgravia High and entered the school premises with their Casspirs and rifles, and detained Belgravia High students and others who had gathered for a mass meeting.

The second half of 1985 was a period of heightened political awareness where young students expressed their disdain for a system that subjected them to intense violence and torture.

Students persisted in developing their political projects, notwithstanding declarations of illegality.

As Rashieda Labans, of the Belgravia SRC, was to succinctly put it at a meeting of students and parents at the Cine 400, the task of the Struggle was to make legal what was rendered illegal.

When the police responded by using force on unarmed students, students retaliated by stoning passing vehicles and erecting barricades in the streets.

Belgravia High, Hewat Teachers Training College, Alexander Sinton, and Thornton and Belgravia roads served as focal points where the 
students gathered on a regular basis.

The Asac schools co-ordinated the boycotts in Athlone and, to a limited extent, linked up with the Western Cape Students Action Committee (Wecsac).

Prior to the boycotts, many student leaders were politicised by organisations affiliated to the UDF, such as Cosas, Cayco, Cahac.

Others were aligned to the New Unity Movement.

Some of the key individuals in Asac were either non-aligned or to the left of the UDF, while a few were schooled in Charterist politics.

But there were some principles that were shared by the entire leadership. The first one is non-racialism. During the early days of the boycotts, Belgravia High and Sinton (so-called coloured schools) had joint mass rallies with Rylands High (an Indian school at the time) and Fezeka High (an African school) and Athlone students made a concerted effort to learn Xhosa Struggle songs and the toyi-toyi.

Secondly, Athlone schools often acted in solidarity with the trade union movement and would respond positively to calls for worker boycotts.

Some leaders later became devout trade unionists. It also worked closely with traders in the area and with community organisations, such as the Athlone People’s Action Committee (Apac), which later initiated the candlelight events which consisted of a blackout of house lights in the Athlone area and the burning of candles. This was an expression of solidarity with those who were killed and detained.

Belgravia High School is celebrating 60 years of existence this year.

On October 14, current and former students and staff will gather at the school to commemorate the Trojan Horse killings which occurred on October 15, 1985.

They will have a short march to Thornton Road (similar to the 1980s) and lay wreaths in memory of Shaun Magmoed, Michael Miranda and Jonathan Claasen.

But they will also honour and remember the contributions made by the surrounding Athlone schools and the broader community.

They will also honour those who opened their doors to the student movement, such as the Hewat Teachers Training College, the Samaj Centre in Rylands, Cine 400, the AME Church, the Anglican Church, the Lutheran Church and the mosques.

We call on all former students of Bellies to join us. But we also call on all former Athlone students who identify with that era to join us.

We call on the traders and lawyers of that era who supported us, 
to join us. And we call on the 
broader community to join us at Belgravia High School at 9am on October 14.

Williams and Lalu are former student leaders of Belgravia High and founder members of the Athlone Students Action Committee

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