On March 21 1960 the South African police shot and killed 69 people–men, women and children–at the police station in the dusty East Rand township of Sharpeville, South Africa. Almost two hundred more were injured. Almost all were shot in the back as they tried to escape the police bullets. On that Monday, the Pan-African Congress (PAC), an anti-apartheid movement lead by university lecturer Robert Sobukwe, initiated a series of protests against black people having to carry the hated “dompas” (identity documents) signifying that they were aliens in their own country. As the tragedy at Sharpeville unfolded outrage in the country and around the world resulted in unprecedented media fury aimed at the racist apartheid policies of the white Afrikaner Nationalist government.

The  10 days following the Sharpeville massacre changed the course of South African history. Protests and strikes were widespread and a run on the stock market particularly by foreign investors almost crippled the economy. Scores of thousands of protesters were detained, and as the jails filled, Sobukwe’s goal of rendering the country ungovernable seemed closer. Prime Minister Dr. Verwoerd’s government declared a state of emergency and on April 9 he miraculously survived an assassination attempt. Repressive legislation aimed at squashing any resistance was rushed through parliament and ushered in the dark years of “granite” apartheid as South Africa (overnight it seemed) became a police state.

Subsequently, regrettably, the world has seen similar outrages against humanity, and it seems they increase exponentially as we watch innocent people dying as a result of  terrorist activity or internecine warfare all over the world. But Sharpeville remains a high-water mark of shame in the struggle for human rights.

A native South African, I was a young teenager at the time and already a staunch proponent of human rights and an anti-apartheid activist. Today I remain committed to the struggle for human rights everywhere. In 1960 I can remember hearing the military helicopters overhead as the government cordoned off the black townships from the rest of the country. At night, in the Johannesburg suburb were I lived, to the east and west, we could hear salvos of gunfire as the police quelled all resistance. I was convinced that the anti-apartheid movement would prevail and freedom was upon us. But it took 44 more years for the first democratic elections to be held in South Africa, and Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress government of national unity to be formed.

Currently March 21 is a public holiday in South Africa, Human Rights Day. To celebrate the great heroes of that historic moment, particularly Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe and his PAC, and the extraordinary events of the year that shook South Africa, my motherland, a place I love fiercely, I have written a historical novel, CONFLAGRATION. It is a tender love story set against the perverted political furor.

I am hopeful I will connect with the right literary agent for this book. If any interested literary agent thinks they may want to represent this work, please contact me, so with this novel, we can help  to carry the torch of human rights forward, as well as the dream of a shared humanity that never dies. I’d love to hear from blog readers too.

Tags: apartheid, Children, Conflagration, creativity, historical fiction, human rights, Sharpeville massacre

I saw a robin today as I walked across campus, a harbinger of spring to come. In a flower bed in front of my home office window there are a host of white and green snowdrops emerging from under those leaves that were not swept away last fall. My heart leaps at the marvel of them. Up here in the north-east corner of this great country of ours, in and around Boston, despite some frigid weeks in December, January and February we have had a mild winter. While all around us and especially to the south and west snowfalls amounts have accumulated above sixty inches (which is our average too),  this year we are at twenty eight and a half inches. Of course we can still encounter some huge storms and maybe will, but on the other hand an early spring is also a possibility. In my native South Africa the change of seasons was not of note. Nine months of summer merged into three months of winter and then, at least in Johannesburg where I lived, the dusty winds of August (spring) heralded the first rains and onset of dry summer heat. Here the spring is a true rebirth. The talons of icy winds and below freezing temperatures slowly loosen their grip on the land and on our psyche. There is an explosion of buds and birds, lawns turn green, the air is warmer on our cheeks, days lengthen, and it rains (a lot). Suddenly the sidewalks are filled with suburban walkers and joggers. More people smile.

Over the past weeks my Philosophy class of college-bound seniors read and discussed Tibetan Buddhist master and Western teacher, Chogyam Trungpa’s book “Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior.” As I read their reflective journals these past days I was struck at how these two-thousand year old teachings caused a rebirth of sorts in my students, an awakening, an opening. They responded with touching honesty to ideas such as “basic goodness”, “being in the now”, “letting go”,  and “drala” the energetic interconnection of all that is. Some wrote of their awareness of their own fears, of how they worry and question, of the endless conveyor belt of expectations they find themselves on, of the material rewards they have accepted as the goal they need to strive towards in order to be “successful” and achieve “happiness.” Trungpa suggests alternative mind-structures, those built of inner balance and harmony, gentleness and respect for self and others. He posits meditation practice as a giant step on the path to becoming a spiritual warrior. As we read the book I taught the basics of meditation and breath-focused attention practices and many students responded positively to the sense of inner calm they can begin to feel burgeoning within.

As Trungpa says “Synchronizing mind and body is not a concept or a random technique someone thought up for self-improvement. Rather, it is a basic principle of how to be a human being and how to use your sense perceptions, your mind and your body together.”

Tags: adolescents, consciousness, creativity, cyberspace, education, Generation E, high school, Janet Levine, meditation, mind structure, rebirth, www.janetlevine.com