"Our parents are prepared to suffer under the white man's rule. They have been living for years under these laws and they have become immune to them. But we strongly refuse to swallow an education that is designed to make us slaves in the country of our birth."After mass demonstrations were shut down, and protesters fired upon and killed by the government, the students resorted to rioting. Students attacked police and burned down government buildings, and the rebellion quickly spread across the country. These riots proved to be horribly deadly for the students, but their dedication and militancy pushed the South African revolution forward and was a major force in shutting down the apartheid government.
“Our message is jobs, not bombs, and welfare not warfare...The era of protest has returned.”
And the reality is that none of this would have happened without riots. There was no petition these young people could have signed, no peaceful march they could have held, no letter they could have written to their MPs that would have produced these results.Younge may disagree with me and my pro-middle class riot stance, he views rioting as a last resort for the voiceless, a point with which I strongly agree. I'd submit too, that the middle class has reason to join the riot-privileged. We have been patronized, greased and stroked with empty niceties by the leaders, none of which pretends to aim at a path toward a world free of domination, mass murder, poverty, exploitation, and vampiric greed that shatters human bonds and grossly distorts humanity. Not to mention the current manic squandering by banks, investors and governments of the middle's class' money. That is to say, it leaves me dry, discouraged, and angry, and our voice isn't yet being heeded.
Amid the charred chassis and broken glass there is a vital point of principle to salvage: in certain conditions rioting is not just justified but may also be necessary, and effective. From the poll tax demonstrations to Soweto, history is littered with such cases; what were the French and American revolutions but riots endowed by Enlightenment principles and then blessed by history?
"We ... want to protest against the fact that there are this many police officers to protect the representatives of a repressive occupying force that massacred so many innocent people in Gaza," a demonstrator, who identified himself only as Jan, told AFP.Link
...middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year....banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions in taxpayer money, had become "viable targets". So too had the headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions in the City which are being blamed for the financial crisis.
Also, check out the local response to the coming rebellion: Preparing the military to restore order.
What we don’t remember, what many of us never really considered, was that this was a mass political action that had no leaders, no apologists, no internal critics. The Watts riot was a spontaneous act of a people who had been oppressed, emasculated and impoverished for too long.The result was too many dead and arrested, but also worldwide publicity to the problems of blacks in inner-cities, local empowerment and politicalization, and immediate local government action to address grievances.
The riot was a rebellion, a naturally formed revolution, an unconscious expression of a people who had lived entire lives, many generations, in a state of enforced unconsciousness. It was about people who were poor and undereducated, people who had no motherland or mother tongue or even a history as far as most of them knew. (From "What We Forgot About Watts" below)
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