Smoke in Your Eyes: a comment on ‘Students take control: the 1980 boycott of coloured education in the Cape Peninsula‘

The events of the schools’ boycott presented by Molteno are reviewed. It is argued that for a combination of reasons illustrative of the difficulties deriving from the relationship between the social sciences and politics, his interpretation of the events must be seriously questioned. The implication arising is that Molteno's linking of practice and theory is in this case not justified.