Alexander Sinton Secondary School

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Alexander Sinton Secondary School
Address
Alexander Sinton Secondary School
Thornton Road, Crawford

Athlone

South Africa
Coordinates 33°58′33″S18°30′45″E / 33.9759°S 18.5125°E / -33.9759; 18.5125
Information
MottoVel Primus Vel Cum Primis ("If not the best, amongst the best")
Established1951 (1951)
FounderAlexander Sinton
StatusOpen
PrincipalMichael D Peterson
Number of students1,100
Website sintonhs.co.za

Alexander Sinton Secondary School, also known as Alexander Sinton High School, is an English-medium school in Athlone, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. The school is located in the Cape Flats, an area designated as non-white under the Group Areas Act during apartheid. The school was involved in the anti-apartheid student uprisings of the 1970s and 1980s. Staff and students at the school made headlines when they barricaded the police into their school in September 1985. [1] The following month, three youths were killed near the school by police officers who opened fire on protesters in the Trojan Horse Incident. [2] It was the first school to be visited by Nelson Mandela after his release from prison. [3] As of 2014, the school has 1,100 pupils, half boys and half girls. The school employs 40 teachers and six non-teaching staff. [4]

Contents

Founder

The school was named for its benefactor Alexander Sinton, who bequeathed money to found the school in 1951. [4]

1976 uprising

During the youth uprising of 1976 protesting the imposition of the Afrikaans language as a mandatory medium of instruction in schools, the students at the school and Belgravia High School nearby in Athlone boycotted classes on 16 August during a period that saw marches, random acts of arson and battles between students and the police. [5] In 1976 Nabil ("Basil") Swart, a teacher at the school, was arrested after helping a student who had been shot during the protests. Swart was released on bail after being detained for a weekend. [6]

1985 protests

Internal resistance to apartheid intensified, and a state of emergency was declared in parts of the country in 1985. The Committee of 81, a student organisation representing coloured schools in the Western Cape which organised student boycotts and protests, held some meetings at the school in 1985. [6] The school effectively stopped teaching from February and was officially closed on 6 September when the government ordered more than 400 schools to close as a result of civil unrest. [1] [6] Some teachers resigned their positions and others were confused as to their role. The Teachers' League of South Africa, a professional association for coloured teachers, [7] encouraged its members not to resign for the sake of the children. Teachers decided to teach, but not to co-operate with the authorities. [6]

The school defiantly re-opened on 17 September 1985 when the principal, Khalied Desai, [8] led teachers, uniformed students and parents who sang protest songs. [1] The police were aware of the students' plans, [6] and arrived quickly. The students threw stones, built barricades and the police replied with armoured vehicles, tear gas, rubber bullets and the arrests of nearly 200 people. [1] [9] Teachers and parents supported the students and their protests against injustice. [6] After the arrests were made, the police were surprised to find that they themselves were effectively prisoners, as the exits from the school were blocked by vehicles brought there by protesters outside the school. [1] The police had difficulty taking away the people they had arrested. [1] The New York Times noted that the action taken by coloured teachers and students at the school was remarkably different to the boycotts taking place at black schools. [1] Swart was again jailed for two weeks in 1985 for helping to re-open the school. [6]

The state of emergency was extended to include Cape Town on 25 October 1985, giving the police and army greater powers to deal with instability in the area. [10] Swart was again jailed for eighteen months in 1986 for his involvement in the school unrest. [6]

Trojan Horse Incident

On 15 October 1985 three male youths, aged 11, 15 and 21, [8] were killed by the police nearby in Belgravia Road in Athlone in what was called the Trojan Horse Incident. [2] [11] [12] Students and activists had gathered where they regularly had battles with the police and were stoning vehicles. [2] [11] [12] Most of the people in the crowd were from the school. [13] Police officers who had been hidden in crates on board the back of a truck opened fire on stone-throwing protesters. [2] [11] [12] The police had deliberately provoked the protesters to allow them to shoot – the truck was driven down the same road twice as the police did not get the anticipated reaction the first time, i.e. stones being thrown at them. [11] [12] [14] A CBS television crew witnessed and filmed the incident and images thereof were broadcast to the world. [2] [11]

An inquest found that the police had behaved "unreasonably", but despite a private prosecution no sentences were imposed on the people involved. [15] A Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing was held into the incident in 1997, after the end of the apartheid era. [8] A memorial marks the spot where the incident took place. It shows a silhouette of the Trojan Horse vehicle and the people who shot the three young people. The memorial also officially includes graffiti sprayed on the fence that includes the message "Stop State Violence". [16]

Other controversies

In 2012, the then principal Fazil Parker was involved in a dispute with the Department of Basic Education after he was given late notice that his teachers needed to mark national exams. The teachers considered the request unreasonable and did not comply with it, resulting in Parker being summoned to a disciplinary hearing. [17]

Notable alumni

Related Research Articles

The following lists events that happened during 1985 in South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of the Western Cape</span> Public university in Bellville, Cape Town, South Africa

The University of the Western Cape is a public research university in Bellville, near Cape Town, South Africa. The university was established in 1959 by the South African apartheid government as a university for Coloured people only. Other universities in Cape Town are the University of Cape Town, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and Stellenbosch University. The establishing of UWC was a direct effect of the Apartheid-era Extension of University Education Act, 1959. This law accomplished the segregation of higher education in South Africa. Coloured students were only allowed at a few non-white universities. In this period, other "ethnical" universities, such as the University of Zululand and the University of the North, were founded as well. Since well before the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, it has been an integrated and multiracial institution.

The Trojan Horse, according to legend, was a giant hollow horse in which Greeks hid to gain entrance to Troy, also used metaphorically.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apartheid</span> South African system of racial separation

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soweto uprising</span> 1976 student-led protests in South Africa that were violently suppressed

The Soweto uprising, also known as the Soweto riots, was a series of demonstrations and protests led by black school children in South Africa during apartheid that began on the morning of 16 June 1976.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Democratic Front (South Africa)</span> 1983–1991 anti-apartheid organisation

The United Democratic Front (UDF) was a South African popular front that existed from 1983 to 1991. The UDF comprised more than 400 public organizations including trade unions, students' unions, women's and parachurch organizations. The UDF's goal was to establish a "non-racial, united South Africa in which segregation is abolished and in which society is freed from institutional and systematic racism." Its slogan was "UDF Unites, Apartheid Divides." The Front was established in 1983 to oppose the introduction of the Tricameral Parliament by the white-dominated National Party government, and dissolved in 1991 during the early stages of the transition to democracy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Athlone, Cape Town</span> A suburb of Cape Town on the Cape Flats

Athlone is a suburb of Cape Town located to the east of the city centre on the Cape Flats, south of the N2 highway. Two of the suburb's main landmarks are Athlone Stadium and the decommissioned coal-burning Athlone Power Station. Athlone is mainly residential and is served by a railway station of the same name. It however includes industrial and commercial zones. There are many "sub-areas" within Athlone, including Gatesville, Rylands, Belgravia Estate, Bridgetown and Hazendal. Colloquially other areas around Athlone are also often included in the greater Athlone area even though the City of Cape Town might classify them as separate neighborhoods such as Rondebosch East, Crawford, and Manenberg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elsie's River</span> Place in Western Cape, South Africa

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign</span> Movement in Cape Town, South Africa

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internal resistance to apartheid</span> 1950–1994 social movement in South Africa

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Crawford is a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, located to the east of the City Centre (CBD) on the Cape Flats to the south of the N2 highway. The suburb is surrounded by the suburbs of Lansdowne, Rondebosch East, Athlone, Belthorn Estate, Rylands, and Belgravia. The main roads through the area are Jan Smuts Drive (M17) and Turf Hall Road (M24) linking to the M5. Thornton Road was for many years the main thoroughfare for this suburb and a hotbed for anti-apartheid activity in 1976 and 1985. Thornton Road is the location of the Trojan Horse Memorial in honour of those killed in 1985. Crawford is served by a railway station of the same name on the Cape Flats Line.

Ronald Harrison was a South African artist most well known for his thought provoking 1962 painting Black Christ.

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Matthew Goniwe OLS was a South African anti-apartheid activist and one of The Cradock Four murdered by the South African Police in 1985.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queenstown Massacre</span> The 1985 civilians massacre by police force

On 17 November 1985, 2000 residents from Mlungisi township in Queenstown, Eastern Cape, gathered in Nonzwakazi Methodist Church to hear back from the Local Residents Association, who, in early November, had met with the Department of Education and Training, the Queenstown municipality, the Eastern Cape Development Board, and the Queenstown Chamber of Commerce to discuss the end of the consumer boycott. The meeting was short-lived as members of the Queenstown branch of the South African Police stormed into the meeting and opened fire on the residents. In the ensuing conflict between police and residents, 14 people were shot dead and 22 were injured. This incident is known as the 1985 Queenstown Massacre.

The Teachers' League of South Africa (TLSA) was an organization for coloured teachers founded in Cape Town in June of 1913. The group, while originally focused on issues surrounding education, became increasingly political in the mid-1940s and started to agitate against apartheid. Due to state suppression, the group became defunct in 1963.

Milton King was a Barbadian seaman who was beaten and killed by South African police in March 1951 after he intervened on behalf of Coloured patrons being harassed by two police officers in a café in Cape Town. King was arrested and died within the next two days, likely from a brain hemorrhage that occurred after a severe beating fractured his skull. One of the two policemen who arrested King, Johannes Visser, was charged with culpable homicide and put on trial, while the other, Constable J. Groenewald, was interrogated. The homicide trial magistrate ruled that since it could not be determined which of the two men struck the ultimately-fatal blow, neither could be found guilty of any serious charge. The only publicly-known punishment resulting from the King trial was Visser being fined £10.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Attempt to Reopen a School is Barred". The New York Times. 18 September 1985. Archived from the original on 24 May 2015. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Cape Town Uncovered: A People's City. Juta and Company Ltd. 2005. p. 118. ISBN   978-1-919930-75-6.
  3. ↑ "Alexander Sinton High School". Archived from the original on 3 October 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  4. 1 2 Our School Archived 23 June 2014 at the Wayback Machine , Sinton.co.za, retrieved 17 August 2014
  5. ↑ Western Cape Student Uprising Archived 4 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine , SA History online, retrieved 19 August 2014
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Truth and Reconciliation Commission Human Rights Violations Submissions – Questions and Answers, Date: 02-06-1997, Name: Basil Swart, Case: Athlone". Department of Justice. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
  7. ↑ Adhikari, Mohamed (1994). "Coloured Identity and the Politics of Coloured Education: The Origin of the Teachers' League of South Africa". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 27 (1): 101–126. doi:10.2307/220972. JSTOR   220972.
  8. 1 2 3 "'Trojan Horse' killers still a mystery". Mail & Guardian. 27 March 1997. Archived from the original on 26 August 2014. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
  9. ↑ Alan Wieder (21 January 2014). Teacher and Comrade: Richard Dudley and the Fight for Democracy in South Africa. SUNY Press. p. 133. ISBN   978-0-7914-7845-5.
  10. ↑ Rule, Sheila (26 October 1985). "Pretoria Expands Emergency Order". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 26 August 2014. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Sue Williamson (1 September 2010). Resistance Art in South Africa. Juta and Company Ltd. p. 100. ISBN   978-1-919930-69-5.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Carolyn Hamilton (31 December 2002). Refiguring the Archive. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 173. ISBN   978-1-4020-0743-9.
  13. ↑ Olshan, Judd D. "The Trojan Horse Incident" (PDF). State University of New York College at Cortland. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 June 2010. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
  14. ↑ Brogden, Mike; Shearing, Clifford D. (2005). Policing for a New South Africa. Routledge. p. 11. ISBN   9781134889464. Archived from the original on 4 May 2024. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
  15. ↑ Trojan Horse Incident Archived 19 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine , SA History, retrieved 17 August 2014
  16. ↑ Memorial to the Trojan Horse Incident in Cape Town Archived 20 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine , Ruin79, Flickr, retrieved 21 August 2014
  17. ↑ Teachers can’t cope with 'extra workload' Archived 19 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine , Ilse Fredericks, Nov 2012, IOL online, retrieved 17 August 2014
  18. ↑ Harrison, Ronald (2006). The Black Christ: A Journey to Freedom. Claremont: Philip. p. 9. ISBN   0864866879.
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