Soweto Uprising: Causal Analysis

On the 16th of June,1976, the Soweto uprising began with high school students protested for a better education. The uprising was a protest formed by black Africans, who objected against the use of the Afrikaans language in South African schools. There are many causes for this uprising such as the apartheid laws strengthening and the introduction of the Bantu Education Act.There were also several important consequences.These include the deaths of over 500 individuals and the beginning of a larger protest movement against the government as well as other such effects like the international boycott of South Africa.

There were many causes of the Soweto uprising with the most prominent being the introduction of the Bantu Education Act. The Bantu Education Act (sometimes called the Native Education Act) was legislated in 1953 and caused further unrest throughout Soweto and the rest of South Africa. The introduction of this act meant many things to the black South Africans, mostly for the worse. Although this act allowed more black students to attend schools, the quality of education dropped. Teacher to student ratio went up from 46:1 in 1955 to 58:1 in 1967 and only 10% of black teachers had completed high school. Pupils also refused to attend schools, as the government was discriminating against black south africans, forcing them to learn in English and Afrikaans, whereas white students has the choice of what language they wanted to learn in. When South Africa entered an economic depression in 1975, it lead to the government spending R644 a year on a white child's education but only R42 on a black child.

Because of the introduction of this law, students began to fight back. When the government announced that schools would be require...

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...e socio-political landscape. When the 1981 Springbok tour came to New Zealand, many people were against it. This tour divided the country as some people believed that while inviting South Africa to play in New Zealand, others believed that politics shouldn’t mix with sport. The tour went ahead, and this sparked many riots throughout the country. After the tour New Zealand abolished any sporting contact with South Africa until the 1990’s

Although many people believed that the Bantu Education Act was the initial cause for the uprising, it was actually the underlying system of Apartheid that lead to the consequences from the events. After living for so long, while being denied basic human rights, black South Africans were sick of it. They wanted a change and they wanted it now. The Bantu Education Act was just the thing that tipped the scales and caused the revolt.