Hip hop identity in a township reality. - Poppunt

a mass rally was organised by the students, which resulted in riots and a violent
clash between the protesters and the police. Police opened fire after they were
attacked with stones thrown by the children. 566 children died during the Soweto
riots (Hector Pietersen, age 12 and Hastings Ndlovu, age 15 among others). The
‘incident’ triggered a gulf of violence throughout the country, which claimed even
more lives.
Although the majority of white people supported the apartheid policy, there were
also whites who did not agree at all. In 1955, the ‘Black Sash’ organisation was
founded by white women opposed to the removal of coloured voters from the Cape
Province voters’ roll (Wikipedia). Covert resistance was expressed by banned
organisations like the largely white South African Communist Party (SACP), whose
leader Joe Slovo was also an important member of ‘Umkhonto we Sizwe’, the ANC’s
armed wing (Wikipedia).
2.4. Time for changes
In the early eighties, the Botha-government realised that things needed to change.
People started to question the ideology of apartheid and alteration was necessary to
end the international violence (Vervliet: 19). Throughout the years, there was also a
modification in demographics: whites constituted only 16% of the total population
while fifty years earlier it was 20% (Wikipedia). Some reformations were made: the
pass laws were dispensed with, employment legislation stopped being
discriminatory (Vervliet: 19), a new constitution was introduced which gave limited
representation to certain non-whites but not to the black majority (Wikipedia).
Those changes were more a way to clean up South Africa’s image towards the
international community than it was a ‘concession’ to the non- white population.
This did not meet the expectations of many people and resistance continued.
Protest came from different angles. Blacks, coloureds and Asians were still striving
for total equality. The Afrikaner Weerstand Beweging (a neo-nazi paramilitary
group) on the other hand, was against loosening up the apartheid policy. The
United Democratic Front (UDF) from Archbishop Desmond Tutu also formed
around this time. They requested the abolishment of apartheid and the elimination
of the homelands.
In 1986, President P.W. Botha announced that South Africa had ‘outgrown’
apartheid. A series of reforms was brought into force concerning racial equality
among others. Still, police services were heavy-handed in oppressing or stopping