Produção Nacional
Revisado por pares
EDIÇÃO COMPLETA
2021; UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL; Volume: 6; Issue: 12 Linguagem: Inglês
10.22456/2448-3923.122359
ISSN2448-3923
Autores ResumoSo, for more than four decades, apartheid served as the institutional centerpiece of South Africa's internal and external policies, especially that discrimination and other forms of violation against black South Africans.Nigeria's anti-apartheid policy did not evolve, however, until October 1960, when the country attained political independence.Nigeria then viewed its independent entrance into the world stage as a profoundly significant event, that provided a unique opportunity to craft a coherent foreign policy towards the international community in general and in Africa in particular; Africa therefore became the centerpiece of the country's foreign policy.One of the cardinal objectives of Nigeria's foreign policy as enunciated by Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa was the promotion of African solidarity and working towards the decolonization of all African states (Akinboye 2005).Nigeria's commitment to the anti-apartheid struggle had been made absolutely clear even before it attained its independence on October 1 st 1960 and her role in the struggle, particularly in the United Nations' Anti-Apartheid Committee, which Nigeria headed until 1994, is commendable.Consequently, Nigeria led other African states to many international fora with the call for an end to all forms of racial discrimination, apartheid and colonialism.In the process, Nigeria was subjected to a form of economic blackmail by the West for her role in the decolonization and liberation of the African continent.In spite of this, Nigeria remained undaunted in her commitment to see the apartheid eradicated.It was precisely for this commitment that Nigeria was considered a member of the Frontline States.As a matter of fact, Nigeria's foreign policy has, since independence, been anchored on the anti-apartheid struggle (Ajala 1992), which was consistently maintained by different regimes in the country until apartheid was completely dismantled in South Africa (Akinboye 2005).The Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and the Events that Followed Sharpeville Massacre, incident in 1960, when South African police opened fire on a crowd of black protesters was a turning point in the fight against apartheid.The confrontation occurred in the township of Sharpeville, in what is now Gauteng province, in northeastern South Africa.Just as earlier mentioned, following the election of the National Party to office in South Africa in 1948, a policy of racial segregation known as apartheid was introduced.Apartheid was designed to regulate the lives of the black major- The Soweto Student Uprising of 1976Another watershed in the struggle against apartheid was the Soweto Uprising by the students, which Nigeria and many other African countries used in fighting the Apartheid government in South Africa, especially on the platform of the Commonwealth of Nations.This uprising was another major struggle since the Sharpeville Massacre.On the morning of June 16, 1976, thousands of students from the African township of Soweto, outside Johannesburg, gathered at their schools to participate in a student-organized protest demonstration.Many of them carried signs that read, 'Down with Afrikaans' and 'Bantu Education -to Hell with it;' others sang freedom songs as the unarmed crowd of schoolchildren marched towards Orlando soccer stadium, where a peaceful rally had been planned.The crowd swelled to more than 10,000 students (Bonner 1976).En route to the stadium, approximately fifty policemen stopped the students and tried to turn them back.At first, the security forces tried unsuccessfully to disperse the students with tear gas and warning shots.Then, policemen fired directly into the crowd of demonstrators.Many students responded by running for shelter, while others retaliated by pelting the police with stones.That day, two students, Hastings Ndlovu and Hector Pieterson, died from police gunfire; hundreds more sustained injuries during the subsequent chaos that engulfed Soweto.The shootings in Soweto sparked a massive uprising that soon spread to more than 100 urban and rural areas throughout South Africa.The immediate cause for the June 16, 1976 march was student opposition to a decree issued by the Bantu Education Department that imposed Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in half the subjects in higher primary (middle school) and secondary school (high school).Since members of the ruling National Party spoke Afrikaans, black students viewed it as the "language of the oppressor".Moreover, lacking fluency in Afrikaans, African teachers and pupils experienced first-hand the negative impact of the new policy in the classroom.The Soweto uprising came after a decade of relative calm in the resistance movement in the wake of massive government repression in the 1960s.Yet, during this "silent decade", a new sense of resistance had been brewing.In 1969, black students, led by Steve Biko (among others), formed the South African Student's Organization (SASO).Stressing black pride, self-reliance, and psychological liberation, the Black Consciousness Move-
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