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Fifty years after the June 16, 1976 uprising, QIBLA reflects on the legacy of student resistance, democratic citizenship and the ongoing struggle for justice.
‘And what is wrong with you that you do not strive in the cause of Allah and for the oppressed among men, women and children who cry out: “Our Lord! Rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors and raise for us from Yourself a protector and raise for us from Yourself a helper.”’ (Qur’an 4:75)
Fifty years have passed since the students of June 16, 1976, rose against apartheid. It has been fifty years since children armed with courage confronted a state armed with guns. Fifty years since the youth of our country taught an entire generation that oppression survives only when ordinary people accept it as inevitable.
We remember Hector Pieterson and all the martyrs of June 1976, along with those whose names never appeared in history books. We recall every school and university where students took a stand. They weren’t the smartest nor all-knowing, not famous or from big families. They lacked in many things, save for courage and the audacity to stand up. We honour our teachers who turned classrooms into resistance theatres and showed us education as a path to freedom.
Many of us were fortunate to learn from educators who helped us see beyond apartheid miseducation. In classrooms built to foster obedience, they taught us to think; in a system meant to promote acceptance, they taught us resistance. In a society built on racial hierarchy, they affirmed our humanity. Many of these teachers were banned by the regime.
Today, as we commemorate fifty years since the uprising, we must be honest with ourselves. If we remember June 1976 merely as a protest against Afrikaans, then we have misunderstood the depth of that struggle.
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The students were confronting something far larger.
They were opposing settler colonialism.
They were threatening racial capitalism
They were defying a system that had stolen land, dispossessed peoples, imported slaves, exploited labour, and then built schools to teach the oppressed to accept their oppression.
Some liberal formations are still today actively working to erase the ongoing catastrophe. Let’s break it down and make it clear.
Jan van Riebeeck arrived with no land deeds. He brought no cattle, no goats. He stole them. From the Khoi and San. The first people of this land. The so-called ‘Stam-Moeders’ of the first Afrikaners? Enslaved women. Otherwise, Khoi and San women – often raped.
The issue was never merely linguistic. Afrikaans is a language of resistance, crafted by slaves and by the Khoi and San peoples. It was first written in Arabic script. It is a decolonial response to the language of the Dutch settler-colonialists.
The issue was power.
The issue was justice.
The issue was dignity.
The issue was liberation.
And fifty years later, those questions remain before us.
Education and democratic citizenship
The great lesson of June 1976 is that education is never simply about schools. Education is about the kind of society we wish to create.
Apartheid understood this. That is why it used education to reproduce obedience. To normalise inequality. To disconnect students from workers. To disconnect workers from communities. To convince the oppressed that the existing order was permanent.
The students of 1976 shattered that illusion. They transformed education into a weapon of democratic citizenship. They taught us that schools, colleges and universities must be places where people learn to think critically, organise collectively and struggle courageously.
Today, we need that lesson more than ever. Our schools cannot simply produce employees. They must produce conscious citizens.
Our universities cannot simply produce professionals. They must produce agents of social transformation.
Education must teach us to ask difficult questions.
Who owns and occupies the productive land? Who controls and profits from the mines?
Who controls the banks and the outflow of wealth and capital?
Who benefits from inequality?
Who profits from poverty?
Who decides whose lives matter?
The struggle was never only against apartheid
We must also be honest about another uncomfortable truth. The end of apartheid did not end the structures that produced apartheid.
The oppressive foundations of racial capitalism persist everywhere. Land ownership is still heavily concentrated. Wealth remains largely in the hands of a few. Economic and financial power continues to be unequally distributed.
The language has changed. The system has adapted.
However, millions continue to live in poverty in one of the richest countries on Earth. The neoliberal order that followed apartheid did not dismantle racial capitalism; it modernised it through privatisation, financialisation and commodification.
The state retreated from its duty to protect the poor, prioritising financial markets above human dignity. We have been conditioned to value corporate profits while communities collapse.
The students of 1976 didn’t take to the streets demanding the privatisation of public services. Instead, their voices rose for a different cause, one focused on the preservation and enhancement of shared resources for all. They did not make sacrifices for education to turn it into a commodity. They did not face gunfire so that healthcare could be out of reach. They did not go into exile for housing to remain an unattainable goal. They did not endure imprisonment for unemployment to become widespread. They did not die so that a select few from the Black Economic Empowerment elite could inherit a minuscule fraction of the privileges of the old apartheid order.
The memory of Qibla and the duty to resist
June 1976 holds special significance for Qibla.
In 1986, a decade after the uprising, South Africa was under a State of Emergency. Meetings were prohibited, and activists were detained without trial. Fear was widespread and palpable during this time.
Many people overlook how dangerous those days truly were.
Members of our movement who travelled to Libya for military training were arrested. PAC High Command members Ebrahim Desai and Bushy were imprisoned in Botswana. Dawood Parker and Yusuf Patel stepped forward as key figures in a remarkable campaign to ensure the breakout of the PAC High Command from jail. Their tactical and strategic planning played a pivotal role in orchestrating a successful operation that extricated the imprisoned leaders from jail, showcasing their unwavering bravery and fearless commitment to the cause.
Inside South Africa, in May 1986, Achmad Cassiem and Yusuf Patel – Qibla’s two most senior leaders – were arrested and detained on charges of terrorism.
Organisations cancelled their commemorations. Many activists went underground and, understandably, many people feared arrest. However, there was never any serious debate within Qibla about whether we would proceed.
When Achmad Cassiem and Yusuf Patel were detained, those of us who remained free understood our responsibility. Arrests had been discussed and anticipated. The struggle could not stop just because our leaders had been arrested. The oppressed could not set aside their aspirations simply because the regime had become more brutal.
We understood that if fear became stronger than conviction, apartheid would win without firing another bullet. While many other organisations cancelled their events, Qibla refused to back down.
In the end, the meeting took place at St Athan’s Road Mosque with Qibla speakers. Activists from various political traditions attended, including some who profoundly disagreed with Qibla and others who were openly hostile towards it. Nonetheless, they all shared one common understanding: Qibla would not surrender, cancel, or negotiate out of fear.
Then, an announcement came over the loudspeaker: ‘This is an illegal gathering. You have three minutes to disperse.’ We chose to continue. The warnings were repeated, yet we persisted.
People looked towards us, terrified. We felt fear too.
Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the refusal to let fear dictate our decisions. The Siege of St Athan’s Road Mosque had begun. Tear gas filled the air, followed by rubber bullets and live rounds thudding into the ceiling. Broken glass scattered everywhere as people escaped through doors and windows. Neighbours offered shelter and safety amidst the chaos. The tear gas intensified, and soon the smoke inside the mosque made visibility nearly impossible. The smell of gas lingered in the carpets for weeks.
The next day, the security police arrested more of our leadership. The national security crackdown on Qibla had begun, but the meeting had successfully taken place. The regime had failed; the oppressed had not surrendered. That lesson remains as important today as it was then.
In Johannesburg, Shabir Shaikjee was arrested. His children were still young, and his wife, Shaheeda, kept him alive and sane during his difficult times.
Sensei Solly Seid from Seido Karate found himself in trouble as well. Who would have thought that a humble dojo instructor would be on the radar of the Security Police because of Qibla?
Some of the other members would be forced into exile by circumstances beyond their control.
Mohamad Zakir would later be kidnapped, killed, and disappear without a trace.
More deaths, more blood, more tears and more sacrifice would follow.
Titles or personalities did not define leadership in Qibla. It emerged through struggle and was earned through sacrifice. Leadership became the answer to the prayer of the oppressed: ‘Why should you not fight in the cause of Allah and for the oppressed?’ (Qur’an 4:75).
Qibla never had the masses; it could have been different if other oppressed organisations hadn’t obstructed the way. However, strength comes not from numbers but from ordinary people – those whom the public never heard of – who prayed and worked tirelessly. Thanks to them, extraordinary things happened. Those of us who were aware – we knew we were never alone.
The duty of Muslims
As Muslims, we do not approach these questions from nostalgia. We approach them as a matter of faith.
Allah commands justice. ‘Indeed, Allah commands justice, excellence and generosity…’ (Qur’an 16:90)
The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said: ‘The best jihad is a word of truth spoken in the presence of a tyrannical ruler.’
And he said: ‘Whoever among you sees an injustice, let him change it with his hand. If he cannot, then with his tongue. If he cannot, then with his heart – and that is the weakest of faith.’
Indifference is not detachment. Looking the other way is worse than the original injustice itself.
Silence is not a virtue. To witness oppression and not be outraged is a moral catastrophe and spiritual blackout.
The Qur’an consistently advocates for the oppressed, the poor, orphans, widows, travellers, slaves, and the dispossessed. Islam is not a doctrine that accepts injustice; it is a theology of liberation.
That is why Qibla always found strength in the Qur’anic promise:
‘And We desired to show favour to those who were oppressed in the land, and to make them leaders and inheritors.’ (Qur’an 28:5)
The oppressed are not meant to be managers of oppression or beneficiaries of it, but rather leaders of liberation.
A final word
When we remember June 1976, let us remember trembling knees.
Let us remember frightened students.
Let us remember detained activists.
Let us remember mothers waiting for children who would never return.
Let us remember the pregnant women baton-charged and beaten up in public.
Let us remember the smell of tear gas in St Athan’s Road Mosque.
Let us remember those who stood their ground when retreat seemed easier.
Let us remember those who gave everything and asked for nothing.
And let us remember the warning of our leader and teacher, Achmad Cassiem: ‘Do not make maximum sacrifices for minimum gains.’
Yusuf Patel embodies that moral compass for us today.
The struggle was always larger than reforms.
It was always about liberation.
It was always about justice.
It was always about human dignity.
May Allah make us worthy of the sacrifices of those who came before us.
May He remove fear from our hearts.
May He strengthen our commitment to justice.
May He unite workers, students and communities in a common struggle.
May He make us among those who stand with the oppressed.
And may He grant us the courage not merely to remember history, but to make it.
‘O Allah, do not let us betray the dreams of our martyrs. Do not let us grow comfortable with injustice. Do not let us accept what You have commanded us to resist.’
Issued by Qibla. Contacts: Aziz Kader +27 (0)82 453 2716; Yusuf Patel +27 (0)60 190 7439; Khalid Khan +27 (0)84 900 6655; Reederwaan Craayenstein +447 380 903 464.
