Note from Frans Cronje, Editor in Chief at The Common Sense: We have published the transcript in full because we think it is very important that many younger South Africans, and many whites, as well as people reading from abroad, who have never had a full appreciation of what it was like to live through the final decades of apartheid, have the opportunity to read in their own time, if they choose, what is was like to be there on the ground and what an extreme price was paid by so many for the country to become a democracy - and therefore why it is so important today that any person or group of influence does all they can for the government to pursue policies that will expand the economy so that South Africa’s democracy will survive. As Mokgoale says of his peers, “They helped to transform this country, although at the cost of their blood. We lost our colleagues, our classmates, they died and we buried them. Unfortunately, this country as it is at the moment, we need to do better for them to know where they are in their graves to feel that we are representing them well." We are grateful to Omry Makgoale for talking to us so candidly and so openly – he is a very great man.

You can watch the full interview here.

Gabriel Makin (For The Common Sense): Exactly 50 years ago today, at around 10am, just outside Johannesburg, the police opened fire on a crowd of protesting school pupils. Hundreds were shot and 176 were killed in the initial shootings. Today, South Africa is a different kind of country, in large part because of the sacrifice those young people made that morning. Joining me today is someone who was there on that fateful day, Omry Makgoale. Hello, Mr Makgoale. It is great to have you on.

Omry Makgoale (1976 student leader and later MK commander): Yes. Thank you, Gabriel. I am happy to be with you in this discussion.

GM: A good place for us to start is with your personal history. Can you tell us about your life leading up to 1976, and why you found yourself part of those protests on that day?

OM: Yes, actually I was a student of Morris Isaacson (the famous high school from which the uprising arose) from 1971 to 1976.

So when this issue of introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction into the township schools started, I was doing my Form Five then, you know, in 1976. So I was doing matric.

What then happened is that the junior secondary schools were affected because they wanted to start this introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction from junior secondary schools so that it can go up until high school. And then the junior secondary school students were unhappy with it mainly because I think the main thing is that we didn't really perform well in Afrikaans, some of us. And so now that it was now introduced as a medium of instruction, it meant most of us are likely to fail.

But the other thing was that we felt that Afrikaans was only local because it was only spoken in South Africa and Namibia, and it was not an international language. So it was not going to benefit us in the long run.

That's why we preferred English, although of course English is also for us a colonial language also. But it was better because it was spoken in many countries and it opened up more opportunities in that sense.

And that's why we did not really want Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. I think that was the main issue. You know,

I would say those two reasons I would use to be the reasons behind why we did not really support the introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.

GM: Going beyond your personal view, what were some of the strands that pushed everyone towards this moment in 1976? There must have been frustration piled upon frustration, because that one moment changed the whole country and was followed by months of protests. What was the build-up to this moment?

OM: I think, you see, when we grew up, we grew up at a period when Nelson Mandela and other leaders were in prison. And you could only speak about ANC and PAC in corners, you know, without openly discussing it because it was forbidden to talk about ANC and PAC. So, it was sort of an environment of silence, of sorts, you know, from 1961, ‘62, when they were arrested. up to our period in the ‘70s.

But in the ‘70s, workers were now striking. Workers were striking for various things against separation, against segregation, because the workers were also paid according to the race.

Unfortunately, when you were of another colour, some people were paid more for the same job and others were not paid as much. That was the tension, built up partly.

And then from there, there was the Black Consciousness Movement and SASO (the South African Students Organization). SASO was formed after black university students split away from NUSAS (the National Union of Students of South Africa). Steve Biko and the others were part of NUSAS, I was told. And so they split up from NUSAS to form SASO. Because they felt that NUSAS was not really addressing the needs of the black students at universities.

So this was the formation of SASO.

And SASO then, Steve Biko and his colleaguess, they started to talk more about black consciousness, that we must be proud of our colour and so on. We must not be ashamed of our colour, you because under apartheid, our colour was considered inferior. everywhere we went, whether it's in the restaurant, we were not allowed to go into the restaurant and whether it's the railway stations, there was a place for black people and then a place for white people. So the colour of our skin was used to make us feel humiliated.

So Steve Biko and his colleagues worked on that mentally. But we are all people created by God. We all have the same features, the same character. So we should not be ashamed of ourselves. We should be proud of ourselves.

I would say that was the psychological make-up towards what happened later on because black students were beginning to, I would say, empower themselves, reading and knowing about the Black Panther movement in the USA.

And of course, I would say a little bit of the song by Brook Benton. You might not know the guy, Brook Benton. He had a song that he sang, Lord, why Lord? Why are we treated like this because of our colour, for our skin? All those things built up.

So, when this issue of Afrikaans came, it came after years of build-up of, you know, this attitude that you know, we should not be treated this way. We should be treated like all other people. And basically we believed that we should have the same rights as white people had under apartheid. And I think that's why ultimately the spark came when this Afrikaans was introduced this way.

Because of the build-up, then it led to the demonstration. And the demonstration ultimately led to the killings of students. And throughout the country, most black university students, high school students were affected one way or another, although not in the same way. I think it was Johannesburg area and a little bit in Western Cape, Cape Town, a little bit in Eastern Cape, a little bit in KwaZulu-Natal. And so... some of the high schools were then affected and some of the universities were affected by this. And the other thing that of course I maybe should mention is when Mozambique got independent, SASO had organised a friendly rally at university. So that also helped to conscientise the black students that no, we should all have this freedom, we should all be treated in the same way. And

I would say that is maybe part of the build-up towards what happened in 1976.

GM: Can you take us through the day of 16 June 1976 in Soweto? What happened as students gathered, and what led to the moment when police opened fire?

OM: Yes, what actually happened on that day, well three days before that our leaders at Morris Isaacson High School, Tsietsi Mashinini and Murphy Morobe, they briefed the students that the leadership of South African Students’ Movement had taken a decision that we should march on Wednesday, 16 June, and so they briefed us that we should march on that day against this introduction of Afrikaans in junior secondary schools.

And so we started preparing placards, you know, that we would carry on the day, preparing for Wednesday.

And they also, of course, emphasised that we should not tell our parents, because some of us, our parents were police people, policemen and policewomen. So they were not supposed to know, because if our parents knew, they might tell their bosses or the police chiefs and then maybe our demonstration would have been, you know, blocked before it started and so on. So even those whose parents were police, we did not tell their parents, I would say.

And so on Wednesday then, we came to school with the placards and all that. And then after the Lord's Prayer, we normally said the Lord's Prayer at Morris Isaacson in the morning before the classes started. We would sing a hymn, Christian hymn. After singing a Christian hymn, then there would be a prayer, and then the Lord's Prayer. And then after the Lord's Prayer, then we would normally go to classes to go and resume the academic day.

But on that day, when we finished the Lord's Prayer, instead of going to the classes, the leaders, you know, shouted, “Amandla”, from the assembly. And then the placards started coming up, you know, from the students, raised by the students.

Then they said, no, we're marching. We're marching towards Orlando Stadium. That is where we were destined to march, to go to Orlando Stadium.

And the idea was that we would, on the way, collect students from secondary schools. But we didn't want primary school pupils, working with us because we knew they were very young and they would get lost.

But when we walked out of Morris Isaacson Gate, going down from where Morris Isaacson is at Central Western Jabulani, going towards White City, of course, the primary school pupils, some of them joined us... the secondary school students joined us as we marched towards Orlando Stadium.

We marched towards Orlando Stadium and arrived around Orlando West High. Orlando West High was also called Matsike High because the founder principal had been Mr Matsike. But at the time, Orlando West High, the principal was Mr Mzaidume.

So when we arrived at Orlando West High, we found them writing half-yearly exams. So they were not really in the mood for marching, because they were writing half-yearly exams during June. And then we then asked some of them, so what's happening? Are you not marching? And that started now. some of the students at Orlando West High started to trickle out of the classrooms. Of course, others in any case, perhaps because they were not going to pass that exam anyway, they felt that they must leave the exam and join the march.

After collecting those students at Orlando West High, that when we moved further towards Orlando Stadium, as we were trying to get there, just near Orlando West High, we saw the police.

And of course, it was a peaceful march in every respect. We had not thrown any stones to anybody. And then we saw the police, so the police came around with the dogs.

There was a dog called Shaka, unfortunately they named that dog Shaka, a black dog that the police were using that day.

And so the police started to... send the dog at us, saying, stop, stop and all that and that dog of course was killed. That dog was killed that day. It had a string on it so the students held the string and they stoned it to death unfortunately, that dog died but it was at that moment that they shot Hector Pieterson around that time and Hector Pieterson was injured.

And we saw Mbuyisa Makhubo of course, you know, picking him up, looking for transport to take him to hospital. And of course the sister of Hector Pieterson was there, also looking at the brother who was, you know, shot. And I would say that was actually the beginning of the worst of the crisis.

At that time we didn't know that they had already killed another pupil before. Hastings Ndlovu was already killed at that time. But we didn't know at that time when Pieterson was killed. So basically, maybe the two first pupils to be killed were Hastings Ndlovu and Hector Pieterson. And from then onwards, the students were angry with all this and then they started throwing things, stones and other things. And I would say that was the beginning of what I would say, what you might call pandemonium or whatever, but it was the beginning of the crisis.

After that time, there was never stability. They started, students were attacking trucks.

Delivery trucks that were coming to Soweto to deliver and trucks that were coming to Soweto to deliver various things at shops and so on were attacked. Even cars with white people in them were attacked, some of them. Very sorry that some of the people who were killed really were not supposed to be killed.

At Morris Isaacson, of course, we had an English teacher who was white. So we had to organise that he should be, you know, safely taken away out of Soweto. He was safely taken out of Soweto. He's still alive, you know, and I think maybe one day if you get a chance you can interview him. He will give you his experience. And he was taken out of Soweto safely.

But some of the white people who were in Soweto during that time were killed, unfortunately. And one person who was killed was Dr Melville Edelstein who was working at the offices, he was a social worker and community worker working there at the municipal offices. Unfortunately he was killed on that day, a very sad story.

But the delivery trucks were attacked and later on the bottle stores were attacked and of course some hooliganism also there, liquor was taken and some people drank it because the bottle stores were broken into. But I would say that was the beginning of the crisis.

And from that day onwards, Soweto was never normal, you know, after that day.

And of course the police started looking for what they called ringleaders or what they would also call agitators or whatever. Yeah, all these terms that are connected with people maybe causing riots.

So all those who were regarded as ringleaders were hunted down in some cases to their homes. Others started sleeping outside their homes, and so on.

And that was the beginning, I think, of the crisis which ultimately led to people going into exile, many of the former students going to exile to go and join the ANC, the PAC and other black consciousness movement in exile.

I would say briefly that's how I would explain it. I can't capture everything because as you know not everybody has got the same experience on the same day.

But that's how I would put it up.

GM: To narrow in on that moment, can you explain what the country was like during the height of apartheid? For someone of my generation, it is almost impossible to imagine because I have only known democratic South Africa. Why would a group of policemen open fire on schoolchildren, even if some were throwing stones?

OM: Yeah, you know, during apartheid, it was a very difficult period.

First, every place in South Africa, you know, every place, whether it's a shop, restaurant, station, everywhere, was, there was a white area and a black area. And we were not supposed to mix at all.

And there was also Immorality Act. You know, you were not supposed to look at a white girl, or a white person was not supposed to look at a black girl because you could be arrested under the immorality laws. So, and I would say that it was a horrible situation because if you had a white friend, you had sometimes to pretend that you don't know the person because the police might arrest you and ask why you were associating with that person.

It was a very serious situation.

At railway stations, all the railway stations, there was a black area, a white area, and the trains also. The coaches, there were coaches for white people, coaches for black people, the trains. In the buses, there were buses for black people, bus for white people, know, everywhere. There were things for white people, things for black people.

You cannot imagine it, because you are living with your former maybe classmates who are from different colors. During our time it was completely different. It was completely different. So in the same class you would not have black and white pupils in the same class.

I remember at that time of course Wits tried to introduce that black students can also study there. But even then it was segregated, they tried of course at Wits to allow that to happen, but it was not wholly encouraged. But at Wits, at least during 1976, I remember there were about two, three students I knew who were studying there.

And of course we had Bantu Education, most of us.

Although of course at Morris Isaacson, we were lucky during my time. We did what was called the Joint Matriculation Board. It was a Joint Matriculation Board that was supposed to be, that would allow you to study at any university anywhere in the world. But it was because the founder principal of Morris Isaacson, Mr Derek Kobe and the others, believed that they must try the best for black education, even under apartheid. So that's why they made sure that we do what was called Joint Matriculation Board. Yeah, at the moment I think it's no longer done, it maybe was replaced by O levels, later on A levels in the UK. But at Morris Isaacson we did that, and this is why Morris Isaacson in the ‘60s and early ‘70s used to produce some good students under apartheid because of that syllabus that we're doing, Joint Matriculation Board.

But later on, in 1976, it was already diluted. Maybe it was a few classes that were doing that. And the other classes were doing senior certificate, a Bantu Education-type of material, which, of course, with that type of qualification, you would not go anywhere in the world and go and study at university before you do what they would call a preliminary course.

For instance, if you had a senior certificate, you wouldn't go and be a student at Oxford University or Cambridge University. You would have to do a preliminary course to pass before you can be allowed in that type of university because the senior certificate was inferior. in terms of when you compare to A level or O level or the current system that is used now at private schools, know, it was inferior.

So I think all the things, black people were getting inferior things, and white people were getting the best, you know.

Unfortunately, I have to say that I am a little embarrassed to say this. Ashamed to tell you this, but this is the reality that everything white was good and everything black was taken as bad, you know. And so it was very unfortunate. It was very unfortunate.

But there was the Institute of Race Relations, where of course during that time, they did have this meeting people halfway, black people halfway. They were liberals at Institute of Race Relations. And I was a member of the Institute of Race Relations.

At that time, I was connected to what we called Flat Pro House in Braamfontein, where some of the teachers used to help me who would help me with physical science and maths, who were whites, of course. And at that time, think, Flat Pro House was run by a man called Colin Smart. Colin Smart was running that place. And the other part of the Institute was the Diakonia House. Diakonia House, Flat Pro House, those were the places of the Institute of Race Relations during that time. So they did try in a liberal way, but not in a perfect way. But they did help me one time.

When I was arrested by police for a pass at the Braamfontein station when I was going home from the Institute of Race Relations, I told the police officer that they must phone Mr Colin Smart at the Institute and they asked, they phoned him. And after they phoned him and he said, no, I know that guy, he comes from here, he is not a hooligan, he's not a thug and so on, and the police let me go. It's an example.

Because of Colin Smart I was released. If Colin Smart did not say I know that guy leaving there, probably I would have slept in a police station. My parents wouldn't know where I am and so on since I went out to, you know, Braamfontein and to the Institute of Race Relations.

So that's how bad the situation was. So, but if you had a white friend, sometimes they used to intervene on your behalf and stop police from arresting you. But it was by luck, if you have a white friend who can do that, you know, just by luck.

I would say the situation was bad. Today, we are equal in every respects. We have other things that are not yet there, but things have changed, I would say.

GM: The fact that police could dehumanise schoolchildren enough to open fire on them is something my generation of South Africans can hardly imagine. As you mentioned earlier, I also have a personal connection to the Soweto Uprisings. My father has always told us that he was part of the Wits SRC in 1976 and that he was on the ground in Soweto at some point when the uprisings began.

OM: Yes, I think your dad is one of those liberal students who used to be there for us. And as I say, at Wits there were black students also there, but there were very few. And we did go to Wits from my class at Morris Isaacson in 1976, before the uprisings, because we were going to check opportunities for black students. You know, I wanted to do engineering, were my colleagues who wanted to do medicine and others because we had this joint matriculation that we're doing and we could attend Wits.

So when we went there, of course, we went to see the facilities, what is the situation, but we were told that for a black student, when you come to Wits at that time, the first two years you can't do your degree. That's what they told us. you have to do preliminary courses to prepare you to start the degree at Wits.

In other words, if I wanted to do engineering at that time, after matric, I would have to do two years of maths and physics before I can start the engineering course as a black student.

But meanwhile, a white student from high school would immediately do it. But those are the problems of the time. Partly, maybe education for black people was not good. Maybe they were right, but there were students who were actually capable of running through without any problems.

But because of apartheid laws, there was always this thing that when it's a black person, you must do this before you can achieve this.

Unfortunately, that was the case at the time.

GM: How did the protest movement spread after 16 June? How did one protest in Soweto lead to months in which the country seemed to explode?

OM: Yes, what actually happened, there was what you call South African Students’ Movement (SASM). It was an organization of students of high schools. It was course affiliated to SASO, SASO was the South African Student Organisation which was mainly for university students. Steve Biko, Saths Cooper, Pallo Jordan, Barney Pityana, all those guys, Abram Tiro, those are the guys of SASO. They were our seniors, they were at university at that time. And at high schools there was the South African Students’ Movement.

It is actually the South African Student Movement that organised the uprisings. And they convened the meetings to organise this.

So the South African Student Movement was all over South Africa. Although of course not in big scale like other, but it was all over South Africa. They had members in Gauteng, then the Transvaal, they had members in... in the Cape, they had members in KZN, they had members in the Free State.

So when these marches started in Johannesburg, Soweto, the communication went out to the other provinces and the other towns where the members of SASM were there. And so they initiated these marches in the respective areas to a certain way. depending on how organised they were.

But that's how it spread throughout. It was because of SASM.

At that time, the organisations, ANC, the PAC were banned. So they were not operating in any way in which they could have organised that march. So it was the South African Student Movement that actually organised those marches.

GM: Correct me if I am wrong, but the Soweto uprisings were a significant moment for you personally. What happened to you after 16 June?

OM: Yes, you know, after June 16, I was one of those students that was missed by the police.

The police did come to my school, Morris Isaacson High School, around October, and they arrested everybody who was at school, the teachers and the students. They took them to police station, Protea, Jabulani, and all those. I was just lucky to be late on that day. I was five minutes late. and I found the police surrounding the school.

So I didn't go into the yard of the school and luckily enough I was not wearing a uniform. So I was, you know, like wearing normal clothes. So I watched that the police taking everybody in the school. That is when I decided that no, after they've arrested everybody at school, some of them are my friends, my close friends were arrested... such as one of my friends who was the chief prefect at the time, Paul Slepe, they had arrested them and I noticed that after they were arrested, they were going to ask them, the police are going to ask them about their friends, and so on, the various people. And I'm no longer safe because I can't guarantee that nobody will mention my name there. You know, so I can't guarantee that.

So I started from then on thinking about what to do, you know, where to go for safety.

Other people, of course, went to other rural towns in South Africa, away from Soweto. And others, of course, started to think about exile.

And it is at that time that we thought about exile with my colleagues from Naledi High and from Meadowlands High. We started thinking, we are meeting at the youth club, at the Tladi youth club where I used to come from. I come from Tladi youth club in Soweto. So that's where we decided that maybe we should go to exile rather than be arrested, go to prison, or be killed in detention centres, maybe let's go to exile to find ways of coming back to fight apartheid.

That's when the decision to go to exile came about and then we did get some links of ANC structures, underground ANC structures.

Then they gave us the link on how to go to exile and they took us to exile.

So then we went to exile and that's when I went to exile. We went to Swaziland. From Swaziland we went to Mozambique, and then we flew to Angola via Zambia and that's where I went to do my military training. I trained in Angola. So that's how I went to exile basically. But it was running away from the police.

GM:
What were the broader effects of the Soweto uprisings and of the movement that spread across the country?

OM: Yeah, I think the Soweto uprisings, what it did, it transformed the whole social consciousness of South African people. Because the students, know, vulnerable as they were, took up, you know, the struggle to remove apartheid. to remove Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.

And the parents, of course, were a little bit scared at that time because after Mandela and others were arrested and the police, you know, beat a lot of them, killed them. So the parents were sort of, you know, dormant, would say.

So the students, you know, because what I know about students is that they don't have responsibilities. They don't have children. They don't have houses. They don't worry about the bond to pay. So when things don't go well, they say, you know, get on, you know.

The student, because they don't have this responsibility, unlike the parents. You see, when you're a parent, if you have to think about going away, you think of your family. But as a student, you don't really have a family, you know. You are still just an ordinary person.

And that's why I think the students took up the cudgels.

I would say the students took up the struggle further.

And the fear of their parents was ultimately removed by the bravery of the students.

Because when your child is affected, as a parent you can't be neutral. So that's how the parents in South Africa started now to buy into the struggle of the students, support the students. And

I would say South Africa was never the same after June 16, 1976.

From then onwards, the struggle was continuing at a higher level. And even though the other leaders were in prison, South Africa was, the struggle was moving at a higher pace than before because of the contribution of the students, I would say.

GM: Would you add that, on the anti-apartheid side, there was a conscientising moment that pushed people like you into exile and into taking up the struggle against apartheid? And on the other hand, was there also a psychological effect on the white population, where people saw the extent of the evil of the apartheid security state and what it was willing to do?

OM: Yes, I think it became clearer and clearer to all decent Christians that apartheid was an evil state and then we have to do everything possible to dismantle it, you know, as it is, because the ruthlessness in which they killed young students and so on, you know, brought everybody to realisation that this is an evil system. We have to do everything possible to remove it and replace it with a much more democratic state than this... so everybody, I think the majority of the people accepted that apartheid is an evil state and whether they do anything about it or they don't do anything about it, it still remains an evil state.

So now every time the police hit somebody else and so on, killed somebody else or a relative and so on. It was actually working to mobilise the family, you know, because after maybe they killed your uncle, and when the family is going to bury your uncle, you think about it, say, what can we do about it? So it's actually the ruthlessness of apartheid, I think, helped to mobilise majority of the black people to actually fight against it. And of course there were a few whites that were part of the struggle, that took part in the struggle. Of course we only saw them in exile, most of them. At home, I only knew the members of Institute of Race Relations who were white liberals.

They were not really ready for the armed struggle. But they were against apartheid.

But in exile is when I met some of the white hardcore revolutionaries, where I met leaders like Joe Slovo, Ronnie Kasrils, and Wolfie Kodesh. I met them there in exile.

And that's when we were surprised, of course, when we met them, we found them there, because we were asking, I mean, we are fighting whites in South Africa, so why are you white leaders here?

And of course, that's when they explained to us that actually the struggle in South Africa is not about race you know, and black... it is about the system that is evil. We need to replace that system with a democratic system. And not every white is a bad person. And as you can see, and as we could see them, Ronnie Kasrils was there, Joe Slovo was there, Wolfie Kodesh was there, and many others.

And so we saw that there are actually whites who are against apartheid and who are even prepared to fight against apartheid.

And that sort of removed our racial prejudice. Some still remain with racial prejudice that you can't really trust whites, because they are part of the system, they created the system, and how do you trust them to maybe change the system?

But because of their exemplary leadership, their participation in ANC politics and, you know, we could see that they are genuinely there against apartheid.

And of course we were told about the late Bram Fischer, one of the leaders, an Afrikaner leader who was a Communist Party member, who actually fought against apartheid. And for Bram Fischer, course, for us it was a good example because his grandfather was the president of the Free State, I think, somewhere there. He was the leader of the Free State during the Afrikaner period.

But Bram Fischer decided that racism is not for him and he's going to fight against apartheid. for us, he remains a touchstone of what a good person is, even under the odds of, you know, he had all the privileges. He could have been a prime minister of South Africa, a white prime minister, if he wanted, because of his lineage. But he chose to fight against apartheid.

So to us, he remains a good example of where the best of South Africans we have. I still regard him as a hero. Of course, I know his children and I look at them with all the respect all the time. Because I know what they sacrificed for... as the Fischer family and other families, of course.

GM: Before we move on to South Africa today, 50 years after the Soweto uprisings, tell us a bit about your life in exile, what you experienced there, and what it was like eventually coming back to South Africa.

OM: Yes, well, in exile, I was a member of the ANC, of course, and I was also a member of MK, the army of the ANC, but not the current MK that they formed now. I was a member of the original MK that was established by Nelson Mandela and others. So, and I was one of the commanders in Angola at one stage. So

I would say that, yeah, I have a... I have maybe good experience of my participation in the struggle trying to contribute to defeating apartheid.

I might have had problems internally in the ANC that sometimes, of course, like now I'm fighting to change the laws and so on because I believe in democracy and according to my view is that we have not managed to achieve the democracy that... that I was fighting for from 1976 and I hope that maybe before I die, we'll have achieved that democracy.

But in exile, I have been a participant in MK activities as a soldier.

And maybe the most prominent thing I did was I was a bodyguard of Oliver Tambo, the former president of ANC at one stage. So maybe that's the main important thing

And also I was a commander in Angola at one stage, a district commander in Luanda. So those are my responsibilities.

But besides that, I wouldn't say much at the moment. I'm concerned about the country, of course, you know, that we have not really achieved what we thought we would achieve as students of 1976.

What we were striving for in 1976, we wanted one person, one vote of equal value. And this, of course, we had listened to Nelson Mandela in one of his clips where he talks of it, one person, one vote of equal value... as Black consciousness students, of course, we wanted to have the same rights, white people had under apartheid.

And at the moment, we don't have those rights, white people had under apartheid. And I will explain how I say we don't have those rights.

You know, under apartheid, from 1910 up to 1994, what used to happen is, members of parliament were elected directly by the citizens of South Africa.

The only thing is the citizens were only the white ones. And the black citizens, Indian citizens, and others were not included. And so the members of parliament before 1994 were directly accountable to the citizens, the white citizens of South Africa. And the white citizens could elect a member of parliament by name in a constituency. That's an example. I think Jan Smuts was a member of parliament for this town in Mpumalanga. I forgot the name of that town now. But Jan Smuts was a member of parliament, as an example. as a prime minister at one stage and you would have maybe De Klerk was a member of parliament, I can't remember who was a member of parliament in Potchefstroom, the others were, you know, but they could be elected directly in their respective constituencies by the white citizens.

But under the current law at the moment, you can't do that. The current law does not allow the citizens to directly elect members of parliament.

Members of parliament are actually appointed by the party headquarters at the moment.

So what happened at the moment, people vote for the parties and the party headquarters then decide who's going to be a member of parliament for a particular area where they had the vote. And the citizens have no say as to who becomes a member of parliament.

And this is why, this is why we have this corruption out of control, and because that's why there's no consequence management.

Because consequence management in any country, in any country, in any democracy, is handled by citizens. When the citizens are in charge of their country, what happens is if somebody is a crook, the citizens remove the person from parliament, remove the person from office.

But under the current electoral law, where the members of parliament are actually appointed by the party headquarters.

It means that the citizens are emasculated, don't have power. It means it's the party headquarters that decides who becomes a member of parliament.

And when the party headquarters is extremely corrupt, like in our case, and then you have members of parliament who are extremely corrupt, and they destroy everything. Whether it's the post office, destroy it now. Eskom was damaged, and they are trying to recover it now. Transnet was damaged, and they are trying to recover it. And the citizens were helpless. Citizens couldn't do much.

And you have sewage flowing into rivers and so on. The citizens are helpless.

Because why? The people who are in charge are deployed from the party headquarters. So the citizens can only watch when this mess takes place in front of them.

But if they had the right, like before during apartheid, The citizens of Meyerton or Emfuleni, they would not allow a mayor that will allow the sewage to flow there to be still in office. Yeah, they would make sure that that person is removed in the next elections.

But in a case where it's the party that deploys, the party headquarters that deploy, if you are connected to the party headquarters, they keep you there even when you are messing around.

And this is why the country is like this at the moment. And that's why, at the moment, I'm campaigning to change this electoral law. I believe that all citizens must have the right to elect directly, elect the president, directly elect members of parliament directly elect the premiers and directly elect the mayors.

At the moment we don't elect these people. They are appointed by parties, headquarters, whether it's a Luthuli House or a DA office or EFF office or MK party, they are appointed. The citizens are helpless.

And I feel that we have not yet reached the democracy that I was fighting for when the citizens are still helpless. I feel that we have not yet reached that.

And this is why I'm campaigning against these laws.

Because I believe that these laws that empower crooks are not good for us as a country. That's my belief.

And that's why I'm campaigning against them. And it's known. I don't hide it to anybody that I want to have the right to elect a member of parliament directly.

I don't want any party headquarters to appoint anybody for me.

Because I don't think any party headquarters has the credentials to appoint anybody for me.

I want to elect a mayor for myself.

I want to elect a premier for myself.

I want to elect a member of parliament for myself.

I want to elect a president for myself. And that's where the difference is.

And I'm not surprised the country is like this. And as you watch the Madlanga Commission, what's happening there, the crooks are there. The police chiefs are crooks.

Members of parliament are crooks, ministers are crooks, you know, and the citizens are helpless. The citizens are watching a movie, you know, and it's about their country.

It's about their country.

So there's something fundamentally wrong with the current electoral law. I believe that this is the biggest shortcoming of the current constitution. That's my view.

GM: Can I ask you about an idea Hassen Ebrahim raised in an interview I did with him about the transition to democracy? He said that, when the ANC was unbanned, there was a massive rush to set up formal structures across the country so it could campaign on the ground and contest an election. In 1990, ANC membership cost R12 and you needed 49 or 50 other people to set up a branch. Opportunists saw where the wind was blowing, entered the ANC at a low cost, worked their way up over 10 or 15 years, and ended up in positions where they could personally profit. He said the fish rotted from the tail up and the head down inside the ANC. Does that connect to your point about accountability, because the electoral system means politicians are accountable to party structures rather than directly to the public?

OM: Yes, I agree with part of what he says. I fully agree with what he says. The thing, of course, is that it's the electoral law that is the cause of all this. Even if people had bought membership with R12 and so on and the branches with R12, but the electoral law was maybe similar to the one before 1994.

The corruption would not be like this, for the simple reason that the citizens in a particular area who don't necessarily belong to any branch of ANC would normally elect somebody they trust in their area. And if they see a crook who happens to be in the ANC or in any other structure standing for election, the citizens will not elect the crook they know.

But under the current law, the electoral law, where the citizens do not have the right to choose their members of parliament. It is the party headquarters that decide.

People just vote for the party, assuming that the party headquarters will nominate credible people.

Unfortunately, that has not been the case. And they've been nominating people who are not credible.

And that's why the countries like this, everywhere you find sewage leaking, the railways are damaged, the trains, everything is damaged, the traffic lights, the potholes.

All this is because the party headquarters has deployed people who are not credible in their respective areas. And at the same time, the party headquarters doesn't want to take responsibility. They still don't want to be criticised sometimes.

And this is why I say we need to change the electoral law to allow the citizens to directly elect their leaders.

Whether the party headquarters is corrupt or not corrupt, if the citizens are allowed to directly elect their mayor, their premier, their president, the citizens will elect somebody they trust, somebody they know.

It is up to that political party to actually nominate a credible person.

If a political party decides to nominate a crook, a known crook, as a candidate to be a president or candidate to be a premier, the citizens don't have to vote for that crook. They just vote for somebody decent.

So the party will be forced to clean up if it doesn't want to lose votes.

But under the current conditions, there's nothing to deter the party from that, because it's the party that deploys.

And this is why we have all these unfortunate things at the Madlanga Commission, as you can see them all the time. They are there, and they were deployed by the party headquarters, most of them.

Those people were deployed by the party headquarters, whereas the police chief was deployed by the minister, the minister who was compromised.

And that's why we have such a police chief. Whether it is the NPA, he was deployed by the ministers.

And this is where the problem is. The rot is in the electoral law. Change the electoral law, you will allow the citizens to clean the country.

If you don't change the electoral law, the country is going down the drain with these politicians because they're just going to appoint crooks all the time. There's no guarantee that tomorrow they will be changed. There's no guarantee. They're not going to change.

And I'm saying that there is no party of angels in South Africa.

So I wouldn't trust any party with my vote. I want to trust... an individual with my vote, a citizen, that I say, person who's standing to be a president or standing to be a mayor, standing to be a premier, I want to trust that person with my vote, not a party, because there's no party of angels in South Africa. I'm saying so to them, all of them. There's no party of angels in South Africa. So I need to have the right to actually directly vote for my member of parliament. That's what I want.

So at the moment I think the country will go down the drain until we change these electoral laws and I believe that the citizens ultimately will see that they have to change these electoral laws. The issue of immigration, for example, is a problem created by members of parliament. The ministers have been ministers of home affairs, ministers of police, they've been presiding over this corruption.

You know, the fact that the people get passports from Home Affairs, you know, illegal immigrants get passports and they move with our passports in the UK, everywhere.

Now when we go to the UK, now they scrutinise us because our passports are given to everybody who is untrustworthy. It comes from the Minister of Home Affairs, you know, who were there.

They did not do their job properly and the crooks are there in the ministry. Whether it is in the police, it's the same thing. They bribe the police so the dockets are lost. Some police go with the dockets to their homes. It happens because of the ministers. You know, it happens because it's not by accident. It's not by accident.

Until we change this law, until we change this electoral law, we cannot rescue the country, I believe. I believe.

GM: To end the conversation, taking what we have discussed about Soweto and South Africa today, what do you think the legacy of the Soweto uprisings is? How should we think about the changes in the country since that time?

OM: I think the legacy must be appreciated that we lifted the struggle up as students of Soweto during that time. We moved away from being scared of police and we faced police, although some of us died with bullets, you know, but we faced police to fight for the right cause, you know, and that's what we did. Against all odds, in front of police with arms and so on, we challenged them. And so that's the legacy, the bravery of the students. We did this, we acted in this manner despite the odds. And that is where the courage of the Soweto students comes in.

They helped to transform this country, although at the cost of their blood. We lost our colleagues, our classmates, they died and we buried them.

Unfortunately, this country as it is at the moment, we need to do better for them to know where they are in their graves to feel that we are representing them well.

At the moment, we don't have the rights, white people had under apartheid. And that's where the problem is, according to me. Thank you.

GM: Thank you very much for taking the time to speak to me today, Mr Makgoale. It was fascinating.

OM: Thank you, thank you Gabriel. I hope it will be helpful to those who are going to listen that there is a need to change the electoral law so that every citizen in South Africa can have the right to directly elect a member of parliament of his or her choice, of his or her choice, irrespective of race and colour.

GM: I also want to thank you not only for speaking to me today, but for the bravery you showed 50 years ago by beginning a process that changed South Africa into a country where you and I can have this conversation without fear.

OM: Thank you very much. It is an honour really to have contributed. At that time I didn't imagine that it's an honour. I was just, you know, angry with the situation. But thanks very much for those acknowledgements. I'm humbled.

GM: I have been Gabriel Makin, and this has been Conversations with Gabriel.