The Sharpeville Massacre was a key turning point in modern South African history. The massacre ended the non-violent civil rights-style political activism and flickered three decades of armed confrontation with the colonial apartheid regime. Most importantly, it became the catalyst for the declaration of apartheid as a crime against humanity by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1966. However, most of the studies on the massacre focus mainly on documenting the events of that day, and very little has been written about the historical re-presentations of the shooting beyond this. This study, therefore, aims to fill the lacuna in the re-presentation and observance of this event. It does so by not only complementing the existing literature but also looking at an area that has been grossly neglected, namely the diverse ways in which the killing has been observed over a period of five decades, starting from the 1960s to 2010.
The study employs discourse analysis as well as critical and in-depth analyses of published secondary, historical and archival sources, including newspaper reports and commentaries on the 21 March Sharpeville Day commemorations. These sources are complemented by a large spread, and wide range of biographical sources, unstructured interviews, testimonials, informal discussions, and conversations with key local heritage activist respondents. The focus group consists of members of the Khulumani Support Group at the Sharpeville branch. The findings and conclusions of this study derive from observations of the anniversary commemorations of the massacre by ethnographic participants.
The study utilises several theoretical frameworks, while the Life Narrative Interpretative theory of oral history lays the basis for this research venture. As the findings of this thesis bear out, the application of this theory converges oral history and collective memory studies. Other theories used in this study include Maurice Halbwachs’ theory of collective memory, which is located in nostalgia, individual testimony, oral history, tradition, myth, style, language, art, popular culture, and physical landscape. Émile Durkheim’s performance or ritual theory postulates that the past is represented and relived through rituals, and the relationship between the past and the present takes the form of a dramatic (re)presentation.
The study observes that cultural rites conducted during memorialisation processes and annual observances of the Sharpeville massacre are marked by human arrangements of performances or ritual remembrances. The transitional justice theoretical discourse is applied in the study’s analysis of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission - a socio-political initiative devoted to fact-finding, reconciliation and memory culture. It concludes that memorialisation processes and rituals are communal reflexes for survivors of the Sharpeville Massacre and families of the victims.
Contrary to assertions by notable Sharpeville Massacre historians, this day was not observed between 1964 and 1984, despite an international commemorative tradition that developed beginning from 1966. The study observes that during the 1960s, the Human Rights Society, an affiliate of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), commemorated Sharpeville Day even at the height of state repression. It demonstrates that it was the Black Consciousness Movement family of organisations that popularised...