Have South Africa’s learners of today heard of Steve Biko or the Soweto Uprising? Thanks to the Apartheid Museum, their legacies are living on through an exciting new comic book, Timeliners.
Depicting the colourful story of a boy named Neo who travels back in time, the comic is aimed at educating kids about Soweto’s 1976 uprising and South Africa’s struggle for freedom.
Drawn by disadvantaged artists from Cape Town, the comic book will now be handed to each learner entering the Apartheid museum and will hopefully be distributed in newspapers soon.
As we approach Youth Day on June 16, the launch of Timeliners could not have been more appropriate. Entitled Soweto in Flames, the first issue of Strika Entertainment’s Comic historically follows the events of the June 16 1976 Soweto Uprising while highlighting major figures and events of the Apartheid movement such as Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement.
Interspersed with fact sheets and activity sections, the comic is aimed at young teenagers because, according to Gauteng Department of Education’s Rae Davids, ”the most potent weapon in the minds of the oppressor are the minds of the oppressed. We need to engage these learners… ”
The 1976 uprising was chosen as the subject of the comic because of its place in history as ”the beginning of the end of apartheid”, museum directior Christopher Till says. On June 16 1976 thousands of school children marched in Soweto to protest imposed Afrikaans education; it was a day that Till describes as a ”peaceful confrontation which tragically turned into a very violent confrontation”.
Antoinette Sithole, the sister of Hector Peterson, the first child to die in the struggle and the director of his Memorial Museum in Soweto recounted the day’s events saying ”I was so, so, so…confused”. The children of the day, she says, found the strength to stand up for themselves because they equivocated mandatory Afrikaans education with a ”bleak future”.
Timeliners is part of a larger effort by the Apartheid Museum and the Gauteng Department of Education to spark young people’s interest in recent history. A mobile apartheid exhibition was recently set up and initiated at Cairo University and plans to travel the world to ”carry the message of the museum and 10 years of democracy much further than just this building”, says Till.
He says the museum would like to further the museum’s education projects but ”the constraint is always money”.