On 16 June 1976 an estimated 20,000 black students took to the streets of Soweto, South Africa in protest against the mandatory use of Afrikaans in all segregated schools. Apartheid police responded to the protest march with unrestrained brutal violence, firing live rounds of ammunition at the unarmed school children. This police intervention left thousands injured and 176 people dead. Using Mbongeni Ngema’s Sarafina!: The Sounds of Liberation (1987), this account problematizes the often romanticized post-apartheid portrayal of the usage of art as a tool to fight apartheid. It investigates two interrelated themes. First, it interrogates how the memory of the 1976 student protest was shaped, preserved, remembered and transmitted over space and time through performance as the show toured from apartheid South Africa to the US. Second, through a close reading of the musical this article investigates how Sarafina!’s global circulation and reception negotiated the United Nations sanctioned academic, cultural and sporting boycott imposed on South Africa in 1968, which called for a total ban on all such activities. This close reading of the tour offers a nuanced understanding of the complicated and sometimes contradictory dynamics of the total anti-apartheid cultural boycott movement and the use of art as a weapon for the struggle.

中文翻译：

---

Sarafina！：从索韦托到百老汇的儿童革命

1976 年 6 月 16 日，估计有 20,000 名黑人学生走上南非索韦托的街头，抗议在所有隔离学校强制使用南非荷兰语。种族隔离警察以无限制的野蛮暴力回应抗议游行，向手无寸铁的学童发射实弹。这次警察干预造成数千人受伤，176 人死亡。使用 Mbongeni Ngema 的 Sarafina!: The Sounds of Liberation (1987)，这个叙述对经常浪漫化的种族隔离后描绘将艺术用作对抗种族隔离的工具进行了质疑。它研究了两个相互关联的主题。首先，它询问了 1976 年学生抗议的记忆是如何在从种族隔离的南非到美国巡回演出时通过表演在空间和时间上被塑造、保存、记忆和传播的。第二，通过仔细阅读这部音乐剧，本文调查了 Sarafina! 的全球流通和接待如何与联合国在 1968 年对南非实施的学术、文化和体育抵制进行谈判，该抵制呼吁全面禁止所有此类活动。仔细阅读这次旅行，可以对全面反种族隔离文化抵制运动的复杂且有时相互矛盾的动态以及将艺术用作斗争武器的使用有细微的了解。