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DNA109.016
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1994-08-24
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9KB
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195 lines
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Passion Justified...
brought to ya from
deep in tha third woild
by pHaze
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Tomorrow is 'Sharpeville Day' and the University of Cape Town
is closed - so I get the day off and have the time to write
this.
Well, that's from my point of view anyway - a practical one.
Of course the reason the University is closed is an emotional
one - because there are going to be allot of emotions flowing
tomorrow, and the 'crowd animal' will cause damage as usual.
My first introduction to this animal was at the release of
Nelson Mandela. Shops were looted and rubber bullets were
flying. I used to think the same way as most other white
South Africans; "Well the shit will blow over soon and
hopefully 'they' wont cause too much damage" - and it always
did....
But then I looked behind at what was causing all the fuss and
the story behind Sharpeville is one of the things I
found.......
Sharpeville:
In 1959 Robert Sobukwe led a breakaway from the ANC into a
new organization named the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), of
which he was elected president. He called blacks to galvanize
themselves in resistance against pass laws, the symbol of
white domination.
The PAC planned its first protest to take place on Monday 21
March 1960. Early on the Monday PAC activists ran through
township streets, knocking on doors and telling the occupants
to join processions outside. Launching the campaign, Sobukwe
walked solemnly in front of a team of PAC colleagues to
Soweto's police headquarters in Orlando, where they handed in
their passes, announced themselves as the leaders of the work
stayaway, and were promptly arrested for incitement.
What happened afterwards in a township called Sharpeville,
thirty miles south of Johannesburg, was to prove a tragic
endorsement of Sobukwe's prophecy a few days earlier, when he
said: 'The tree of freedom is watered with blood.'
Answering the PAC's call to assemble in the streets,
Sharpeville residents milled around during the morning, most
not knowing exactly what was expected of them. They drifted
to the township superintendent's office and to the school
square, finally converging on the police station. Word began
to spread that a statement was to be made about pass laws by
an important government official from Pretoria. Circulating
for hours, the rumor became embellished to the point where
some standing outside the police station expected an
announcement scrapping passes forever.
By midday the crowd had swelled to 20,000 according to police
estimates, though blacks denied their number ever exceeded
5,000. Reports reaching Johannesburg newspapers claimed the
demonstrators were in a hostile mood, and two cars carrying
journalists were stoned as they approached the police
station. In Evatin, a nearby township, thousands of
demonstrators were readily dispersed by jets swooping
overhead, but similar tactics failed to shift the Sharpeville
crowd. A squadron of planes repeatedly diving towards them
brought cheers from children and had the opposite of its
intended effect, bringing more people to the area to see what
was happening.
As the crowd swelled, local police discovered their telephone
was out of order. Calling the town of Vereeniging - three
miles away - by radio, they waited for reinforcements. Five
Saracen armored cars arrived, inching their way through the
demonstrators and bringing the total number of police from
twelve in the early morning to 200 by lunchtime.
The head of the Special Branch , Colonel Spengler arrived at
1.00 P.M., followed soon afterwards by Lieutenant-Colonel
Pienaar, a senior officer from Witwatersrand police
headquarters. Spengler tried to address the demonstrators but
his voice was drowned. The crowd jostled and the fence around
the police station began to sway. Pienaar ordered his armed
men to line up facing the demonstrators. Then Spengler became
entangled in a brief scuffle at the station gates. Seeing his
colleague stumbling back from the crowd, Pienaar told the
police to load five rounds, not realizing that some had
already loaded their weapons fully.
Deciding to arrest the ringleaders, Pienaar and Spengler
hauled three PAC men over the fence into the station yard.
But when the gate was opened to bring in a fourth organizer,
Dozens of demonstrators surged through it. The police
staggered back amid a shower of stones. A black constable
yelled: "Run! They are going to shoot!" Two shots rang out,
followed by a deafening burst of gunfire. Stopped by the
frantic shouting and arm waving of Spengler and Pienaar, the
shooting lasted twenty seconds. But by then 743 bullets had
been fired. Sixty-nine bodies lay dead on the ground outside
the police station; 178 more were wounded. Over half the
victims had been hit in the back while running away.
Ten minutes later a photographer took a picture of the scene,
which appeared the next day in newspapers around the world.
Showing a field full of corpses and two policemen armed with
rifles looking on, it was the first image of South Africa to
capture international attention; a repulsive impression of
apartheid which was to remain in the collective conscience of
the world for many years to come.
That was the first major incident in South Africa that was
taken note of - perhaps because the world before then was at
the same level as South Africa was in terms of values, or
perhaps ignorance prevailed before then. After this incident
there were many more that followed, each one bringing the
western community to a higher awareness of the fascist
institution which resided in South Africa.
Now from my point of view, I'm in a bit of a difficult
situation. I share some of the sentiment of the oppressed -
like LETS MAKE THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS PAY!!!!!!!!!!
But then again, when referring to 'those mutherfuckers' I
include myself to a certain extent because I am white and an
ancestor of the racist regime.
I had a black girlfriend a bit more than a year ago. I found
myself in some interesting situations with her. The stresses
that were created in my family <Not my parents - they are
very liberal and my old man used to be politically active>
were unbearable at times. I took a drive in the country with
her once an found myself in the older section of a town
called Somerset West. I walked into a bar with her to make a
fone call because we were lost, and we got some heavy looks
with some hectic comments underbreath. So I left, and on my
way out I looked up and saw a sign that said "Europeans
only"-meaning all the NIGGERS can FUCK OFF. So I went next
door to the 'non-european' bar and found the fone.
Now - this was in 1992, so things haven't changed much on
this side of the world. But we are having our first
democratic elections on the 26 of April - so we'll see what
happens then.
~
As far as politics in cyberspace go in South Africa, well if
you guys can get in here <Telnet/phreak/x25> at all, do so
cause this place is extremely backward when it comes to
hacking/phreaking related stuff. An article was published in
South Africa's biggest computer magazine about 2 months ago
about these 'Hackers' that are invading the datasphere (I
guess those assholes missed Wargames).
Gibson wrote about the rape of third world countries'
computer systems' by hackers in more advanced countries, so
perhaps that'll come true some day if you guys start
telnetting on over here and checking out the scene.
There are only two main networks in SA where politics exist
in any form. The one is Beltel which is mostly a pickup joint
for desperate lamers. The other is the Internet which is
reserved at this stage <In South Africa> for the
Universities. There are less than 5 BBS's in SA which have
Internet access - and that's just Email access.
The only major hacking that goes on in SA is in the X25
service called SapoNet and UniNet <The university network -
which is connected to the InterNet>. There are only about 10,
maybe 15 people in South Africa who actually know their shit
when it comes to H/P. There is the odd War3z d00d and War
Games disciple to be found here and there, but thats about
all there is.
If anyone would like to muck around with our networks,
contact me or Aphex Twin and we'll provide you with the
relevant addresses <If you're hacking thru'> or Numbers <If
your phreaking through>.
pHaze....
Howzit to: Aphex, Tear, CyberCore, Maelstrom and Quetza.
Fuck you's to: TonyHawk, TimeWiz and all the racists in SA!
~~~~~~