June 16 1976

In June 1976, high school pupils in Soweto marched to demand better education, igniting what would become known as the Soweto Uprising. File photo. Image: ...

Despite the despair in many communities and the cynicism of state officials, there is hope. They demonstrated to us what was possible through the processes of public mobilisation, education and democratic organisation. And through this, they also laid down a challenge for what we were meant to teach and to learn and how that was to be done, for what and whose purposes and towards what kind of social system. The first has to do with the political economy of the apartheid state, the draconian political and economic system that was established in the interests of a racist minority in our country. June 1976 and the years that followed are enormously important not only in the history of the country but also for its relevance today. Who can deny the utter desperation that gives rise to all the psychosocial trauma, gender-based and other forms of violence, xenophobia and social dysfunction we see daily? We need hardly spell out the conditions that continue to face the vast majority of the people of SA so many years after 1994. They showed us that you could organise and mobilise both secretly and publicly to challenge the system. They showed us that the armoured vehicles of the apartheid government were not unbreakable fortresses. This education equality was inseparable from their vision of a fair and egalitarian society. This is happening in a country that has enough physical, environmental, material and intellectual resources to build a caring and compassionate nation. Despite the annual commemoration of this momentous day, the context and origins of June 16 recede into the past.

This year's the commemoration of Youth Day marks the 46th anniversary of the June 16 1976 Soweto uprising.

It includes investigating juvenile issues, involving youth in potential solutions, and developing focused measures to limit risks and promote development impact. Many constraints, however, obstruct the spread of youth empowerment to achieve its aim. Throughout South Africa, young people encounter a variety of obstacles.

The students who marched on 16 June 1976 did more than simply register a political opinion.

These acts are themselves rooted in a complex pattern of joy and anger – in the desire to turn the world upside-down, and emerge out of specific historical and social contexts. It does not only mean the forms and institutions that define the democratic state. The roots of democracy lie in these actions, in these claims to agency and equality. Instead, it has marked – and still marks – popular dissent and democratic organising in South Africa since the end of apartheid. It is no doubt important to do this, and to remember the sacrifices and struggles of the past. By gathering and marching together, and by acting together they constituted themselves as political agents – as people who already possessed the kind of agency that the apartheid state denied they could ever claim.