Abram Onkgopotse Tiro
1947 - 1974
| Names: | Tiro, Abram Onkgopotse |
| Date of Birth: | 1947 |
| Date of Death: | 1 February 1974 |
| Place of Birth: | Dinokana, a small village near Zeerust |
| Place of Death: | |
| Gender: | Male |
| In Summary: | Activist and teacher, killed by a parcel bomb. |
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A.O. Tiro
Early Life :
Activist Abram Onkgopotse Tiro grew up in Dinokana, a small village near Zeerust. He attended the primary schools at Dinokana and Motswedi and matriculated at the Barolong High School in Mafikeng (the Mafikeng). His parents resided in Dinokana where his mother, Maleseng, still lives today (1999). Tiro had two brothers and one sister.
After completing matric, he enrolled for a degree in the humanities
at the University of the North, where he was elected president
of the Student Representative Council (SRC) during his final
year. At the University′s graduation ceremony in 1972, Tiro delivered a speech that was characterized by its sharp criticism of the Bantu Education Act of 1953 and later became known as the ′Turfloop Testimony′. The authorities of the time were angered by Tiro′s
outspokenness and this speech precipitated his expulsion from
the University. Despite demonstrations by the student body under
the
new S.R.C, Tiro was not readmitted.
Political Career :
After he was expelled from University in 1973, Tiro became involved in the activities of the Black Consciousness Movement. This was an ideology developed primarily by black students after 1968 to encourage blacks to liberate themselves psychologically from the effect of the institutionalised racism and white liberalism. In 1969 he was the founder of the South African Student Organisation (SASO), and in 1973 he became its organiser.
Subsequently he was offered a post as a history teacher by Legau Mathabathe, the Headmaster of the Morris Isaacson High School in Soweto, where he introduced his pupils to Black Consciousness Movement aspirations and started a campaign to conscientize them by encouraging them to question the validity of the contents of the validity of the history books prescribed by the Department of Bantu Education.
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Prepared by Joe Mdhlela, former senior political writer, Sowetan, National Treasurer of the Media Workers′ Association of South Africa (MWASA), ordained priest and subeditor, Challenge. The new dictionary of South Africa biography Volume 2, Vista University, Pretoria, 1999. |
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Last updated October 2007
This School became known as a ′cradle of resistance′and
produced the likes of Tsietsi Mashinini, one the student leaders who spearheaded
the 1976 Soweto uprisings. Tiro was also instrumental in establishing the
South African Student Movement (SASM), of which membership also included
student
from neighbouring countries.
This was an offshoot of the Black Consciousness Movement and its aim was
to influence the direction of Southern African student politics. In 1972
he was
elected the Honorary President of the movement at a congress in Lesotho.
However, it was not long before the government started pressurising school
principals
who had offered employment to expelled students to dismiss them. After Tiro
had lost his teaching post, the apartheid government used its powers to silence
or restrict SASO′s leadership.
Those affected included Steve Biko (who had become SASO′s leader at
its inception), Bokwe Mafuna, Strini Moodley, Saths Cooper and Harry Nengwekhulu.
Nengwekhulu had returned to South Africa only shortly after spending nearly
two decades in exile in Botswana. Biko, the father of the black consciousness
movement, together with other black leaders, had broken away from the white
dominated student body Nusas to form the black-led SASO.
Travelling to all parts of Southern Africa, including Lesotho, Swaziland
and Botswana, Tiro now realised his ideal of winning support for the Black
Consciousness
philosophy. However, towards the end of 1973 he got wind of the fact that
the police were planning to arrest him and fled to Botswana, where he played
a
leading role in activities of the SASM, SASO and the Black People′s
Convention (BPC). While living a simple life at the Roman Catholic Mission
at Khale, a
village no more than 20km from Gabarone, he was instrumental in forging links
with militant revolutionary groups such as the Palestinean Liberation Organisation
(PLO) in 1973.
Death :
Throughout his life he showed a commitment to working for the well-being
of the underprivileged. He believed that ′the primary source of income for blacks is land, and we need to restore land to the dispossessed′.
Perhaps the fact that he had spent his childhood in the rural village of
Dinokana had sharpened his appreciation for the impotence of land. On 1 February
1974
Tiro was completing an application form to continue his studies through Unisa
when a student known only as Lawrence handed him a parcel supposedly forwarded
by the international University Exchange Programme. As he was opening it,
the parcel bomb exploded, killing him instantly.
Tiro's remains were exhumed by the Azanian People's Organization and
his family and returned to Dinokana for reburial in 1998. Unfortunately the
South African Truth and Reconciliation (TRC), failed to conduct an in-depth
formal investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death. In a tribute
to Tiro the president of the Azanian People′s Organization, Mosibudi Mangena, described him as a man of strong convictions who refused to compromise his principles, a person of simple tastes who could not accept the way black people had been dehumanised by the apartheid policy, a man who lived by the motto that it is better to die for the an idea that will live than to live for an idea that will die′.