SA owes generation of ’76
· Citizen
In the play, Rise ’76, currently running at the Market Theatre in Joburg, the audience is reminded that one of the most prominent victims of the 16 June 1976 riots, Hector Pieterson, would have turned 62 years old this year.
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On the 50th anniversary of the riots, the country stands on the precipice yet again: the president’s tenure is in a precarious position and the police force leadership has been exposed to be in cahoots with serious organised crime.
Blaming a generation
It was no wonder then that a caller to a radio station suggested that all this country’s problems can be blamed on the 1976 generation, as they are the current leadership of both the government and the police and are now in their late 50s and early 60s.
In a world that shuns true analysis, it would be very easy to attribute everything to the 1976 generation.
The real truth is far from that though.
Strength of democratic institutions
The only reason this country knows the details of what happened on the president’s farm in Bela Bela is that this country’s press is allowed to write whatever they want about whoever they want in government.
That is a press freedom that is not matched in many countries in Africa and the world.
The possibility that the president might be impeached because he might have violated his oath of office following his actions, or lack thereof, after he was burgled of dollars stuffed in a couch on a farm shows the reach of the constitution.
That General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi could stand in front of the entire country and expose the police’s shenanigans is yet another indication of this maturing democracy.
Achievements of the 1976 generation
All of the freedoms the country enjoys now were primarily fought for by the generation that some seek to now blame for the state the country is in.
That some of the 1976 youth who gave rise to Youth Day might have grown to up to be trapped by the lure of easy money cannot take away the hard-fought battles that led to the loss of many lives of mere children in 1976.
Role of the press and public memory
It is sad that many holidays have lost their primary purpose of being reminders of the dark and painful history that brought about the press freedom that allow investigative journalism to thrive in this country.
The role of the press in sustaining democracy was summed up by Nelson Mandela when he said “a bad free press is preferable to a good but subservient one”.
The press knows they can write anything about any leader of government without fearing a night or two in jail.
Lessons from June 16
The date, 16 June, should always remind the country that when citizens, young and old, play the role of guardians to their freedoms, there is a limit to the extent that a government can take away their freedoms, even through the barrel of a gun.
Instead of people viewing the events around the 1976 uprisings as a shameful reminder of how a “bad” white government’s police shot children on the streets, it can a teaching point that children displayed unmatched courage in saying enough is enough to a language policy that sought to impose Afrikaans as the dominant language.
The events of 16 June, 1976 and other holidays must be used to teach the country that the freedoms enjoyed today were secured through tears and blood.
When a corrupt police official is exposed at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, the country must take a bow to the generation that made that transparency possible.