During May, June and July, as resistance to the government's constitutional plans gathered force, there were protests and boycotts in several townships over issues that have been frequent points of conflict with the apartheid regime: education, housing and transport.
As on many previous occasions, the authorities relied heavily on the police in their attempts to break boycotts and suppress resistance.
EDUCATION
Unrest in several schools during July, particularly in Soweto, led both police and community leaders to compare the situation with that just before the protests of June 1976.
On the surface the protests were concerned with a number of different issues. Pupils and educationalists however, interpreted them as expressions of deep hostility to the apartheid education system.
There has been a substantial expansion in secondary school education for Africans since 1976.
The expansion of the system has not however improved education, according to two leading black educationalists, who were interviewed by the Financial Mail in June.
Willie Kambule, a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand said: 'The educational scene in the black community is explosive. The apparent changes have all been physical. The quality of education has in fact declined since 1976... Education is still geared to apartheid and the feeling in Soweto is one of resentment.'
Curtis Nkondo, a former headmaster and a member of the Soweto Teachers Action Committee said: 'There are more students at school now, but this doesn't indicate a change in the system... It is still Bantu education but has simply been given another name'.
Protests early in the year over poor exam results give substance to the criticism of falling standards. The events in July underlined other criticisms.
There appear to have been broadly two kinds of issue motivating the protests: the presence of certain white teachers in the schools; and the responses of school authorities to pupils' grievances. In the course of meetings involving parents as well as pupils, it became clear that these issues were aspects of more general opposition to the school system.
The presence of white teachers in African schools is partly an effect of the shortage of African teachers resulting from past restriction on African education. In Soweto the expansion of the school system has seen the number of white teachers increase from less than 20 in 1975 to about 240 in 1982.
In addition some white teachers are national servicemen. According to Willie Kambule, white teachers are sometimes suspected of being 'the eyes of the system'. 'Some of these teachers carry guns and are brought to school in armour-proofed cars. They arouse suspicion.'
Protests over white teachers occurred at two schools in Soweto. At one pupils objected to the presence of a white teacher who replaced another white teacher, while at the second the objection was to the replacement of black teachers by white teachers. Boycotts and protests at four other schools during the same period (in Soweto, in Tembisa near Johannesburg, in Atteridgeville near Pretoria, in Vryburg in the Northern Cape and in Cape Town) related more directly to questions of control and representation.
HOUSING
Two developments focussed attention on the issue of black housing during the first part of 1983. In African townships near Durban there was a long and bitter struggle to resist rent increases. At the same time the government announced changes in housing policy, changes which critics said would make things even worse for the poor.
Increases in rents averaging 63 per cent in the townships administered by the Port Natal Administration Board were due to take effect from 1 January 1983. A Joint Rent Action Committee (JORAC) was formed to represent residents in all the affected townships, and to co-ordinate resistance. The increase was postponed until 1 May.
Following the killing on 25 April of Harrison DUBE, a leading figure in JORAC and a former ANC activist, tension rose in the Lamontville and Chesterville townships near Durban with clashes between police and demonstrators. Over 5000 people attended Harrison Dube's funeral.
Shortly afterwards the government announced the deferment of the rent increases until 1 August. However, tension persisted and following the appearance in court on 22 June of four men in connection with the killing of Dube, there were more demonstrations and attacks on Administration Board buildings. One of those charged with Dube's murder is the chairman of the Community Council.
There has for a long time been acute shortage of housing for Africans, and very high rents. A government commission (the Viljoen Commission), stated in 1982 that there was an estimated backlog of 168,000 houses for Africans outside the bantustans. The Commission identified the policy of regarding Africans as only temporarily outside the bantustans, and limited government funds, as causes of the backlog.
During the first part of 1982 the government announced the adoption of new policies recommended by the Viljoen Commission. They involved a switch towards greater private sector financing of housing for Africans, through employers, building societies and other private companies. Part of the scheme is the sale of a large number of houses to tenants (on a 99-year leasehold basis for Africans). Tenants who do not buy their houses within a year will face large rent increases.
Critics of the government said that while a small minority would benefit from the new policies, the housing problems of the poor would be made worse. They said the increased cost of housing would force many people to go to bantustans, thereby losing their rights to reside outside the bantustans.
TRANSPORT
A ten per cent increase in bus fares for people living in African townships around East London, imposed in July, was met with resistance in the form of a boycott which continued into August in spite of intense police action against boycotters.
The policy of forcing black workers to live in segregated townships situated far from the 'white' areas in which they work, has made the cost of transport a frequent source of conflict with the apartheid regime. The boycott of bus services has been the most common form of resistance.
Mdantsane is the biggest township near East London. Situated just inside the boundaries of the Ciskei bantustan, most of its residents who are employed work in East London. A large proportion are transported there by the Ciskei Transport Corporation.
By the second day the boycott was 80 per cent effective, and continued in the face of the police actions described below.
