NELVIS QEKEMA | Young people, rise to shape the world you wish to inherit

It is 47 years since the June 16 uprising. In the late 1960s, the young Bikos of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) reorganised the people and reignited the flames of the liberation struggle after the banning of the ANC and PAC in 1960. They sacrificed and risked their lives to undo the political doldrums that set in as a result of the bannings. Historians describe the ensuing fear and political inactivity as a political lull.

The bannings resulted in mass arrests of political activists, while many slipped out of the country into exile. In a sense, the struggling masses were left organisationless and leaderless. In the alienating atmosphere of white liberal National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), a progressive black consciousness-inspired South African Students' Organisation (Saso) slowly brewed in mid-1967. However, it was in the University Christian Movement (UCM) that Saso was fermented and formed as the pioneer Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) organisation in 1968. Steve Biko became the founding president at the organisation’s launch at Turfloop, Limpopo, in 1969.

Biko and his young comrades had to move hastily to build institutional infrastructure that later proved instrumental in the 1976 uprising. Organisations such as his formed across society. The South African Students' Movement (SASM) was one, formed through the efforts of the Saso comrades. It operated at high-school level and had Tsietsi Mashinini and Khotso Seatlholo among its leaders. SASM formed the Soweto Students' Representative Council, of which Mashinini was president.

It therefore amounts to historical revision to talk about the June 16 uprising outside the institutional framework of the BCM and Biko’s political influence.

The uprising is often mistakenly reduced to a reaction to the threat by the apartheid regime to impose Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools. For the record, the threat was never implemented. Afrikaans was colonised by the racist regime, but the language was developed by indigenous people as they resisted speaking foreign languages such as Dutch. There were economic, ideological and institutional factors that combined to bring about the uprising.

As a result of political pressure, the apartheid regime reversed its position of not building schools in black communities. In 1972 it built schools on the basis of the newly introduced concept of junior secondary schools, the result being a considerable increase in enrolment of pupils.

On the international economic front, the Arab-Israel war caused an increase in oil prices. Due to this and inflation, the global economy went into recession. The gold price nosedived in 1975, resulting in the worsening of economic performance in South Africa. By that time, the apartheid government began belt-tightening at the expense of the African child. While spending R644 on a white child, only R42 was spent on the African child. 

The regime went into knee-jerk reaction mode and removed Standard 6 at the beginning of 1976. That meant pupils who passed Standard 5 went straight into Standard 7 at secondary level. This caused overcrowding that became a factor in the mobilisation of pupils.

The picture painted above shows clearly that the threat to impose Afrikaans as a medium of instruction was no more than a trigger mechanism for the June 16 uprising. People's socioeconomic difficulties and high level of politicisation and mobilisation were other decisive factors. The mass exodus of the youth into exile played a pivotal role in reviving exiled organisations considering ready-made recruits. Accordingly, the ANC’s Umkhonto we Sizwe boasted June 16 detachment in its military ranks.

There are a number of lessons the youth of today could learn from their June 16 predecessors. The first is that you are never too young to fight against landlessness and racism. Biko rose to lead the liberation struggle as a teenager. That’s why he was murdered in police custody at the tender age of 30. Moreover, the conscious adventurism of the June 16 youth never misled them to burn and loot the property of the people in villages and townships. Their target was every property that was the symbol of apartheid. They never destroyed schools, libraries and clinics.

They never used their deprivation and plight as reasons to destroy their souls and futures by abusing drugs and alcohol. Instead, they used their plight as motivation to fight for their rights as part of their communities. In fact, bottle stores were their major targets for destruction. They never turned against their communities as delinquents like today’s “amaphara”, who terrorise theirs. They used their adventurism positively to defend their communities, directing their stones and petrol bombs at the enemy of the people.

The positive influence of the June 16 youth spilt over to the youngsters of the 1980s. Youth organisations such as the Azanian Youth Organisation (AZAYO) had slogans like “Asispini Elokshini — Asimkhawadi udarkie Siyamphilela”, summarised to mean “We don’t terrorise our own communities and people”.

No matter how tough the going is, young people should never turn their backs on education. Poverty and starvation are the reasons the youth should demand to go to school. Learning and self-cultivation are part of the struggle for liberation. No rains or overflowing rivers should be allowed to come between us and our schools. Education is an effective weapon against dehumanisation and lack of dignity that are a result of landlessness and centuries of oppression.

Racism does not end with the removal of apartheid from the statute books. It endures as structural racism to permeate all institutions and systems of society. Similarly, colonialism does not end with the declaration of democracy. It remains as coloniality, which sees former freedom fighters looting state resources rather than driving the development of the people.

Let us remember Alice Walker’s words: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” It is time young people rose to shape the world they wish to inherit. There is a need to be more creative and constructive than negatively assuming young people can only be economically active if older folk desert spaces for them to occupy. We should never forget that our parents, many of whom were systematically denied opportunities, are the older generation.

• Qekema is president of the Azanian People's Organisation (Azapo)