DISTINGUISHED alumni, families, elderly and young, education fraternity figures, curious community members of Naledi, pious volunteers, representatives of a car dealership, crime prevention wardens and members of the SAPS converged on the grounds of the “Jewel of the West”, a.k.a. Naledi High School on the Thursday morning of December 14 – in celebration of its Diamond Jubilee (60 years.)
They descended upon the historic academic institution purposefully in flashy vehicles, taxis and pedestrian mode with anticipatory springs in their steps and knowing smiles flashed amongst acquaintances from yesteryear!
It was not any ordinary gathering. This one occasion during the 29th summer under a democratic dispensation of the Republic on the southern tip of the African continent was in celebration of a milestone realized by the very school which sparked the water shedding Students Uprisings of June 16, 1976.
Familiar household names were in abundance: ex-DG in the Thabo Mbeki administration, Reverend Frank Chikane, ex-Premier of the North West Province, Popo Molefe, incumbent Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration Chairperson, Enos Ngutshane, ex-Soweto Eleven activist, Sibongile Mkhabela, ex-Ambassador and SANDF General, Dan Mofokeng, seasoned journalist Oupa Ngwenya, et cetera.
With a common thread among the aforementioned attendees being that they’re the school’s alumni – along with absent fellow former students such as Khotso Seatlholo (the late cohort of student leader, Tsietsi Mashinini) Khehla Mthembu and Mike Siluma, to mention but a few.
‘It was not so much a moment of revel, as it also was that of reflection and taking stock of the gains from the Struggle so many of the school’s past students waged against the might of the Apartheid regime pending the mid-1970s – and the malady of filibusters diminishing the gains through misdemeanours’ such as vandalism and theft of the institution’s property (furniture and Wi-Fi infrastructure).
Although also a reunion for some such as Chikane – the cleric didn’t withhold his disdain for criminal elements engaging in such anti-social conduct, freely addressing the rapt audience whilst orating in Sesotho: “Bo tsotsi tshwanetse hore ba tsebe mo, haho kenwe! (thugs ought to be prevailed upon that: here, there’s no leeway!)
Freewheeling down memory’s lane 56 years on from when he started out as a pupil, he recalled coming back to teach maths and physics at the alma mater – lasting a mere four months after the objections of the security police who ordered the then principal, “we don’t want this teacher here, get him out of here because he’s part of the problem!”
Inside a white marquee erected on a rugby field and adorned with a framed portrait of the school’s founding principal, Rudolph Mthimkhulu and emblems emblazoned with the slogan: Work, Faith, Reward, a substantial horde gazed attentively on with sporadic applause whilst hanging on to every designated speaker’s words. Seizing the cudgels of a clarion call for sponsorship of sorely needed repairs and additional infrastructure spelt out by the school’s governing body chairperson, Balate Mokoena, Mkhabela (once the only female SRC member from the class of 1976) resounded, “I wished that we were intentional in countering the regime! I like to raise funds – we must commit. Let the children benefit!”
Current head, CC More beamed about “academic achievement beyond reproach” – with the past five years (of his 6 years’ tenure) National Senior Certificate results trajectory registering pass rates of 71% in 2018; 87.2% in 2019; 88.3% in 2020; 76.7% in 2021 and 88.7% in 2022, evidencing that not only did the institution focus on matters academically, a former student, the sprightly grey-haired Gilbert Moiloa had the opportunity to regal guests with a sport-related anecdote entailing the patronage of the English “wizard of the dribble”, Sir Stanley Matthews, who facilitated the former’s football outfit known as The Black Eleven, undertaking a tour of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
With a red soccer jersey spotting signatures of his erstwhile teammates, Moiloa – once a defender – induced mirth amongst the gathering when he deadpanned: “You wouldn’t go past me!”
A la’, “it was the best of times – it was the worst of time” figure of speech, another alumnus, the gangling Mlungisi Ntsele, took the visitors down a rather unceremonious memory lane which has become part of the school’s history, namely the Lourenco Marques Bus Disaster of July 1, 1974, which claimed the lives of ten of its scholars.
With former PRASA honcho Popo Molefe fervidly recording his address on his phone’s video, Ntsele hauntingly described how he had to rescue the former from the mangled wreck and thereafter had to arrange the process of the retrieval of the deceased’s remains from a foreign country.
Following on the speeches part of the programme, attendees were invited to a garden adjacent to the school’s administration block where a marble structure recognizing Ngutshane’s Struggle credentials was unveiled.
Subsequent to a photo and video opportunity, the party retreated to the marquee where select guests were gifted with books expounding on the history of June 1976.
Thereafter, Molefe – surrounded by a surfeit of officials – symbolically cut a huge cake in commemoration of the milestone, before guests were invited to dish up sliced helpings of the confectionery. With a cow having been slaughtered specially for the occasion – guests then dispersed for lunch.
All images top Jacob MAWELA (Reverend Frank Chikane, recorded delivering addressing attendees at the 60th anniversary celebration of his former alma mater Naledi High School, Soweto).
About Naledi High School
Naledi High School was the ‘epicenter’ (in Chikane’s description) of June 16, 1976 Uprisings owing to a chain of events which occurred around the torching, by students, of a police Beetle on June 8 whose occupants had arrived on the school’s premises to arrest one of its student leaders, Enos Ngutshane.
The timeline of the protests which would culminate in the mortal wounding of Hector Pieterson had its genesis at the school before it segued to others such as Morris Isaacson and Phefeni Senior Secondary School.
The powder keg had all been inadvertently set alight through the following letter by Enos Ngutshane addressed to the then education Minister M. C. Botha:
Dear Sir,
By enforcing Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in our school, you are now creating a big problem for us as Black students. You are now closing a door for us to continue with acquiring decent education.
Afrikaans is not our mother language that we find difficult to understand. We are not going to have Afrikaans as medium of instruction in our school. It is just not possible. Our language preference is English and nothing else.
Sincerely Yours, Enos Ngutshane.
Naledi High School
