TRAMPLING ON SACRIFICES OF YOUTH OF 1976

TOMORROW marks 45 years since the youth of Soweto, and later South Africa, took to the streets and said “enough is enough”.

With bare hands, stones and dustbin lids, they bravely confronted the might of the apartheid security forces and changed the path of history.

While the jury is out on who liberated South Africa, it is a fact that cannot be disputed that the June 16, 1976 student uprisings took the Struggle for the liberation of the country to another level.

The youth of 1976, who fled the security clampdown to exile, are the ones who swelled the ranks of the long-exiled ANC and PAC. On arrival in exile, they found moribund liberation organisations and reignited the fire that had dimmed in them.

We can argue this until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is that after the 1976 uprisings, the situation in South Africa was never to be the same. In the youth, the apartheid establishment had found its match.

They rendered the country “ungovernable”, intensified mass mobilisation, made constant calls for the freeing of jailed political leaders, the return of those in exile and freedom for all.

The youth were marching forward, making the “Liberation Struggle” a popular phrase, rallying around the call to “Free Mandela”. The generation of 1976 deserve an honour unmatched – an honour different to the shameful partying we see today.

This year, on June 16, do not forget to remember and respect those who shook the tree without expectation of a reward.

Honour those who gathered the fruit for safekeeping, serving for nourishment, unselfishly, with a deep sense of understanding the virtues of giving and receiving with humble gratitude.

Permit yourself to lament the dastardly acts of those who came, saw and squandered the fruit by trampling on it without remorse, for their own selfish gratification. In the presence of such unrepentant debasing deeds of these shameless squanderers, the world is regrettably rendered a poorer, heartless, soulless, mindless and dangerous place to live.

The lesson the squanderers often miss is that the world will not be safer for them either, nonchalantly sitting on the loot that occasioned the misery of others, all to feed their uncaring happiness.