Relearning the values virtues and victories of youth leadership

June has been set aside on our calendar as Youth Month.

It is a month where we stop and reflect on that eventful day of June 16 1976, when young people in SA were massacred by white apartheid police.

The students in 1976 revolted not necessarily against Afrikaans as medium of instruction, as has been documented in history books, but rather for the demolition of the main pillar of apartheid — Bantu education. The Bantu education system was designed,  as Hendrik Verwoerd suggested,  “to make black people see the greener pastures but not to reach them”.

Ironically, as we entered the month of June, the world is abuzz with #BlackLivesMatter protests sparked by the death of George Floyd at  the hands of police in Minneapolis, in the US, at the end of May.

SA has joined the call for racists to remove their knee from the neck of  black people.

 In 1976, the apartheid government did not only have their knee on the neck of children, but their security forces killed some of these innocent young people as well.

Many young people who participated in the 1976 student revolt were killed.

Several of those who survived bullets, including myself, were  arrested and detained  in solitary confinement under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act of 1966.

While in detention we were tortured. The torture included  including having our private parts tied to bricks and the girls’ nipples pulled using pliers.

The horrors were even worse for others, who were burnt  by police as some of form of punishment.

Like George Floyd, we “could not breathe”. The  apartheid government relentlessly kept the knee on the neck of the black young people and their leadership.

It hurts that in 2020, black people still cannot breathe. It is now a black-led government that has its knee on the neck of poor black people.

Who can forget the shooting in 2011 of an unarmed Andries Tatane by police during service delivery protests in Ficksburg?

Barely 12 months later, more than 30 people were killed by the police at Marikana as they protested for better salaries and living conditions.

Recently, more than 10 people have been killed as security officers enforce lockdown regulations.

The treatment of black people  in democratic SA is not unlike what the apartheid government did.

 Solomon Mahlangu, one of the leaders in 1976, cried out: “The tree of liberation shall be nurtured by the blood of the martyrs.”

We wonder what he would say if he were alive today, as black people are not enjoying the fruits of that  tree that was watered by the blood of the youths of 1976.

The birth of the Black Consciousness Movement in about 1968 sought to liberate the minds of black people from the shackles of an apartheid framework.

It inspired the youth of 1976 to fight for their liberation and to  demand a decolonised education system and curriculum. 

They wanted an education that would help them to be free from apartheid and to get back the land their forefathers had been dispossessed of by colonialists.

The young people were indeed  crying out that they could not breathe in the classrooms, at their homes and  in the land of their African ancestors.

This is a similar cry  to the struggle of the students of the #FeesMustFall movement.

These young people are crying loudly for free education, because education remains a potent weapon to fight poverty. Ironically, our government gave young people child grants ahead of free education.

When SA  attained democracy in 1994, the leaders and cohorts of 1976  rushed to parliament to become  MPs, while others became BEE gurus.

We forgot to connect with our young people. We even left our communities such as Soweto and settled behind high walls in Sandton.

We located statues of our role models not in Alexandra, to inspire young people, but in flashy suburbs.

From the class of 1976  to the #FeesMustFall generation, I ask that they forgive us.

I apologise because we have abandoned them. By disconnecting  ourselves from the current generation,  we exposed our young people to those seeking to capture them.

Some have lost  their understanding of the values, virtues and victories of youth leadership.

It is sad to see our young people fighting  for the opening of the bottle stores and selling of alcohol, yet they burn the schools and libraries.

One of the values, virtues and victories of June 16 1976 was the destruction of bottle stores and protection of schools. We defended our schools with  books when apartheid police attacked us with their guns.

It was a battle of book vs bullet. The current culture of beer vs book is worrying.

What kind of future will come out with such young people?

There is a silver lining in all this. I'm excited that soon we will be launching a reconnection programme.

I am humbled, as well, by an invitation from the MKVA June 16 Detachment to form part of a project that will protect schools from vandalism  and discourage propensity to bottle stores.

We are going to use the spirit of June 16 to fight Covid-19 in a project code-named June 16 vs Covid-19.

We are joined in this fight by the youth attached to the June 16 Youth Development Foundation.

This is a sign that all hope is not lost. There are young people who can still do well and carry the June 16 legacy forward.

Under the “Making Our Community and Schools Safer for Children and Vulnerable People”  project we seek to cultivate the ethos that says education is a pillar for the future.

The project is a partnership with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, the SA Human Rights Commission, the Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative and the Seth Mazibuko Legacy Foundation.

I salute those leaders of 1976 who are  still grounded in their communities and not part of those who made their purse from the struggle of the people.

They are fighting for land, for decent housing, decent jobs, electricity, water and sanitation.

The battle against apartheid might have been won but the war for a better life is far from over.

The majority of black people still can't breathe in spite of the brave fight put up by the class of 1976.