Unlike their counterparts in 1976, the ‘African renaissance’ youth need to grapple with problems posed by, among others, wars, child soldiers, child labour, drug abuse and trafficking, and globalisation
Sifiso Ndlovu
Writing about the history of the Soweto uprising and the present represents coming to terms with a traumatic past.
This process of remembering against forgetting also represents a patriotic citizen’s struggle against institutionalised inequality and discrimination that permeates our society. This inequality and discrimination is a challenge to be taken up by today’s youth, whose apathy regarding such societal issues is beyond description and borders on ignorance.
It is my belief that every generation defines itself and its role in history with reference to the needs and purposes of a given society.
As a result the 1976 generation took the initiative and responsibility of organising vital resources and used them in breaking down the established direction of social development underpinned by apartheid, institutionalised violence, discrimination and inequality.
To most analysts and experts it is still incomprehensible how the 1976 generation achieved its goal of breaking down the apartheid state; as a result they have a similar goal and interpretation of wanting to explain the Soweto uprisings by reference to external forces.
But it is important to note that the 1976 generation were, during the period prior to June 16, masters of their own struggle. As a group, they could achieve such a significant victory against insurmountable odds because boundaries between child, youth and adult (in age, labelling and naming) are not only penetrable, but also indefinite and shifting. They are also historically specific.
It is necessary to consider these terms not simply as defined by age or indeed by degree of maturity or status, but defined instead by young people themselves – by their actions, by their definition of themselves as different from others, and possibly from generations that came before them – especially different from the definitions imposed on them from the outside by intellectuals and adults.
As a result, the historical context is very important when defining the 1976 generation.
In the 1970s in South Africa, “schoolgoing children” included young men and women in their 20s.
“School-age” children, on the other hand, were not necessarily enrolled in schools as some spent their days on the street doing odd jobs, like selling coals and firewood, with others minding siblings or playing.
For various reasons this was particularly so in African societies where education was not compulsory. As a result, the “children of the Soweto uprisings” brought forth a new and distinctive generation and probably a new age category of their own making, something between adolescence and maturity.
Because of this our protest actions were not spontaneous because as students we were in charge of our own destiny and were the prime actors and at the forefront of the defiance campaign against Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.
We had a vision to stand up and fight against the prevailing pedagogy of domination and destructive language policy.
The foolishness of this chaotic system is the fact that the teacher, for example, would deliver a mathematics lesson in English for her senior students (form three/standard nine) and would be expected to use Afrikaans when teaching mathematics to junior students (form one and two) during the same day. This was done regardless of the fact that the same, highly experienced teachers were using English only as a medium of instruction for all grades in the years prior to 1976.
Also, the apartheid state did not offer teachers further accelerated professional training in order to prepare them for changes that were implemented in 1976. As a result, there was no continuity in the new system as it undermined the fundamental developmental educational policy that elaborated, encouraged and fostered continuity between different standards/grades in a given subject.
As hard as they tried, our teachers were clueless with the “new content” in Afrikaans and as victims, we suffered the consequences – hence our resolve to take a stand and fight for our rights and liberation as patriotic citizens.
These issues are discussed in my archive book Soweto Uprisings: Counter-memories of June 1976.
However murky the boundaries between children, youth, adolescents, young adults and adults are, as a “child” of Soweto I was an adult when I compiled the archive book.
My testimony, in varying proportions, reflected past and present identities, including apartheid education as defined by governance, state control, curriculum, student activism and culture, personal history and post-apartheid South Africa.
My memories and testimony are still part of that experimental generation of the 1970s that shook the complex edifices of apartheid, at the same time as they were part of a different (age) generation, more mature and in many cases, parents themselves.
All these issues need to be taken cognisance of when discussing challenges facing today’s youth. The latter need to play a prominent role and central role in realising the goals of the “African renaissance”.
Like the 1976 generation, they need to define themselves as a generation, and their role in history, with reference to the needs and purposes of a given society.
As members of the future leadership their struggle involves the promotion of both moral and intellectual leadership; struggle for economic liberation as the second phase of the liberation struggle in South Africa; fight against poverty, landlessness and HIV/Aids.
They will also need to extend these struggles to the continent as a whole and take advantage of South Africa’s geopolitical position.
Unlike the 1976 youth, they need to grapple with problems posed by wars, child soldiers, child labour, drug abuse and trafficking, information technology revolution, regional integration and globalisation – a tall order indeed for the “African renaissance” generation and Youth Commission.
Sifiso Ndlovu is a researcher at the Africa Institute of South Africa and author of The Soweto Uprisings: Counter-memories of June 1976 (Ravan Press, 1998)