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Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary of the Soweto student uprising — a moment that changed the course of South African history for the better.
On June 16 1976, thousands of schoolchildren in the sprawling township — some of them barely in their teens — took to the streets in protest against the apartheid government’s decree that Afrikaans was to be the language of instruction in black schools.
The police responded with brute force, shooting and killing scores of children and arresting hundreds of others. The state’s violence sparked national outrage; students in black universities from Turfloop to the University of the Western Cape abandoned lecture halls, while township schools in many parts of the country had to be closed for prolonged periods.
In the weeks and months that followed, the student revolt grew to be much more than a fight against Afrikaans as a medium of instruction or even police brutality; it galvanised communities to join the struggle against the whole racist system and revived the liberation movement within South Africa’s borders.
The central demand of the protests and activism became nothing less than complete political freedom and the establishment of a republic in which race and skin colour no longer determined a citizen’s fate.
The South Africa that marks the occasion is no longer at ease, with much of the citizenry feeling that things are falling apart
The anniversary prompts reflection on whether, 32 years into democracy, we are any closer to achieving the ideals that those young people, and the communities that joined them, espoused.
The South Africa that marks the occasion is no longer at ease, with much of the citizenry feeling that things are falling apart.
Unemployment — especially among black youth in the townships — is at a record high, the inequality gap is widening and poverty remains a reality for too many families. The liberation dividend seems not to be delivering, and the very foundations of the post-apartheid settlement are being challenged on various fronts.
Some have turned their anger and frustration on illegal immigrants, falsely blaming them for the fact that millions of South Africans are without jobs. Others are retreating to racial and ethnic laagers à la apartheid, gradually withdrawing from the nation-building project envisaged by the 1976 generation and many others who came before.
The political establishment has been severely compromised and discredited by a long list of corruption scandals, some reaching as high as the Union Buildings, and lacks the authority and statecraft to lead the nation out of the polycrisis.
Beyond the mass rallies and political speeches that will mark the commemorations this week, our generation has the duty to respond to the urgent question: how do we get the country back on the right track?
Half a century ago, the students of Soweto responded to their crisis by taking to the streets. They had few options, as they lived in a repressive state without freedom of speech or assembly. Yet they sparked a chain reaction that transformed the country.
We are fortunate in that we have many more tools for change at our disposal and that we live in a constitutional democracy that guarantees freedom of speech and grants everyone a say in their future.
We should take advantage of our democratic rights. We owe the 1976 generation that much.
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