Teargas, loud screams and bullets flying everywhere. Placards abandoned on the ground as school children ran in different directions. Imagine that you were amongst the crowd of students protesting for a better education.
The day was 16 June 1976, a day recorded as one of the most important days in South African history.
Now imagine 16 June 2018, burnt desks and schools with broken windows. Abondoned. No children on site. Children should be learning here; education as their right is enshrined in the South African Constitution. The right written by the blood of Class of 16 June 1976, but they are empty. The schools are empty in 2018.
On 16 June 1976, thousands of black students, mobilised by the South African Students Action Committee and supported by the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) marched peacefully from Vilakazi Street Soweto.
While they made their way to a rally in Orlando Stadium, they came across a heavily armed police force who formed a wall facing the students warning them to disperse immediately.
The order from the police was met with resistance from the students who were determined to continue with their march to the stadium. The police released teargas and gunshots to the crowd. Some of the students started throwing stones and the police reacted by firing more shots.
One of the shots killed 12-year- old Hector Pieterson. A photograph captured by the late Sam Nzima at the moment that showed the teenager being carried by another student, became the icon of the event. The photograph also exposed the cruelty of the apartheid government to the world.
What happened on that day resulted in a widespread revolt that turned into an uprising against the apartheid government. It began in Soweto but spread across the country and carried on until the following year.
The uprising was triggered by the policies of the apartheid government that introduced the Bantu Education Act in 1953. Under this act, Afrikaans became a medium of teaching.
Students were forced to write exams in a language that they were not used to. The Bantu Education system was designed to train and fit black people for their role in the apartheid society.
The class of 1976 were fighting against an unjust education system that sought to maintain their status quo as inferior to their white counterparts. They were demanding quality education and the right to access education in the language of their choice.
Black people were programmed to believe that they couldn’t be more than domestic workers or general labourers. For many of them, thriving careers as, doctors, lawyers etc, seemed farfetched.
The rise of BCM and the formation of the South African Student Organisation raised the political consciousness of many black students in the country.
Now 16 June 2018, 42 years later, we have learnt from the youth of 1976 to stand up and fight for what is right.
The youth today are confronted with lot of social ills and problems.
Today young people are still being denied the opportunity to get an education. It is not by the Police, or government, nor is it because they protesting being taught in the language they despise. The language of oppression. It is because of their parents.
@Mpueducation @DBE_SA The 711 learners at this Primary School couldn’t write exams this morning. They were sent home because the school was torched earlier this morning @SABCTVNews @eNCA pic.twitter.com/8C5fXfjek7
— Elijah Mhlanga (@ElijahMhlanga) June 12, 2018
Torching and destroying of schools is one of the ways in which the right to learn is taken away from the youth of 16 June 2018. By their parents. Their Guardians. We have seen how schools are destroyed in service delivery protests and other protests that have nothing to do with education. The burning of a single school holds back the progress of hundreds of young people’s futures.
We are capable of fixing our own problems. In us we possess the spirit of those who marched in 1976.
They fought for their liberation that would benefit us, now it is time to fight for our own liberation. Let us break free from the shackles that hold us back from being the best that we can be.
Rise South African youth rise.