June 16 uprising: the missing woman's face

Since that cold Wednesday morning on June 16,1976 the retrospective analysis around this epoch-making day had always adopted a patriarchal posture despite women's conspicuous presence in the protest. Names such as Tsietsi Mashini, Hector Pieterson, Mbuyisa Makhubu and Khotso Seatlholo have become indelibly synonymous with this day. Direct and extended role played by women like Sibongile Mkhabela, Sophie Tema, and Winnie Mandela has not been adequately chronicled to provide a balanced view.

Students under the auspices of Soweto Students Representative Council (SSRC) had embarked on a protest march against imposition of Afrikaans language as medium of instruction. The enforcer of this language policy was Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration & Education Andries Treurnicht who later became President of Conservative Party.

On that fateful day, multitudes of peaceful students marched from schools like Morris Isaacson and Naledi High en route to Orlando Stadium. They were intercepted by police who opened fire on them leaving many injured and 176 was the official figure of those who died. Many more were arrested while others went into exile.

As Thomas Sankara said " Women hold up the other half of the sky," I shall therefore give the well-deserved prominence to the role played by women in 16 June 1976. First on my radar is Sibongile Mkhabela who was a student at Naledi High and the only female executive member in SSRC. She was also Secretary General of South African Students Movement who at one stage sat around the same political table with Black Consciousness Movement leader Steve Biko.

She was a well-percolated leader who took the bull by the horns. She was the only female who stood trial for sedition in what was called Soweto 11. She was found guilty and sentenced to three years imprisonment at  Robben Island of female political prisoners (Kroonstad prison). Mkhabela is currently CEO of Nelson Mandela Children's fund and a recipient of the National Order of Luthuli. She's testament that women were not just cosmetic paraphernalia to 1976 student uprising.

Baby Penelope Tyawa was a rebellious female student who marched and threw stones at the police on June 16, 1976. She went on to become a founding member of Congress Of South African Students and her activism led to her prolonged detention at John Vorster Square and Protea police station. In her adult life, Tyawa got appointed as Acting Secretary of South African Parliament.

Another woman who cannot be confined to the periphery of 16 June narrative is former Rand Daily Mail reporter Sophie Tema who had gone to Soweto to cover students' protest march. She's the woman who risked torture and detention when she assumed  the role of a paramedic by ordering her driver to stop the car and take injured Hector Pieterson to Phefeni clinic. Pieterson had been shot by police at corner of Moema and Vilakazi streets in Orlando West. Tema allowed Mbuyisa Makhubu, Pieterson and his sister into the her official Volkswagen beetle en route to the clinic. She abandoned her official duty and ran on foot to the clinic where Pietrson was certified dead on arrival. Tema went on to become one of the pioneer journalists for City Press Newspaper.

Antoinette Sithole, a sister to Hector Pieterson is the female student dressed in a dungaree seen running alongside to Makhubu carrying her injured brother in the iconic picture taken by Sam Nzima. She too was not just a cheerleader to the uprising - she was an activist in her own right. The discourse around the iconic June 16 picture is fixated on Makhubu running with injured Pieterson in his arms. It's as if Sithole photo-bombed the picture when in fact she was there as part of stone throwing brigade that resisted Afrikaans. Sithole now works at Hector Pieterson museum.

Mamphela Ramphele's role can never be trivialised in perpertuity. This is a woman who smuggled banned literature to student leaders like Mashinini and Seatlholo thereby propelling their revolutionary consciosness to a higher-voltage which culminated in a revolt against Afrikaans.She was subsequently detained under Section 10 of Terrorism Act and later banished to Tickeyline village in Tzaneen. In 2000 she was one of the four Managing Directors at World Bank. In 2013, Ramphele established a political party called Agang SA and was a presidential candidate in South Africa's 2014 general election.

16 June archive can never be comprehensive until a face of a gallant woman is annexed to it. Winnie Mandela is the woman whose face provides a texture of feminine temerity to a series of events that unfolded during the uprising. She literally pulled arrested students out of police Khwela-khwelas in an act of brazen defiance. She saved many students who could have otherwise "jumped" from 10th floor of John Vorster Square police station. In collaboration with Dr Nthato Motlana, she established Soweto Parents Association for parents whose children were injured, imprisoned or killed. Winnie ensured safe exit out of South Africa for students who sought military training in exile.

She was the social worker who counselled parents and students through traumatic experiences of the day. A year later, apartheid government banished her to Brandfort where she served eight years under house arrest. Winnie later became President of ruling ANC's Women's league.

This is but a synopsis of women who held the sharp end of the dagger during 16 June 1976 uprising. There are still many women whose stories of bravery have not been documented. There are mothers who opened their doors to students who were chased around by apartheid police and female nurses who saved lives of injured students. Like Sankara, I can hear the roar of women's silence in an endeavour to reclaim their rightful stake in June 16 narrative.