Our war never ended, it became civilised (June 16)

 

Photo-credit Dalisu Buthelezi

The history of an African child has travelled through the worst form of humiliation, abuse and slavery. June 16, 1976, Soweto uprising was about the medium of instruction in a schooling system that sort not to educate and empower a black child in South Africa, in any way. The education system was still preparing black children to be exploited for cheap labour, and therefore the struggle should have been two folds, to ban Afrikaans and to ban Bantu Education.

 

Fast forward to 2017, the youth of South Africa still dresses school uniforms in remembrance of the brave-hearts that dared to challenge the white power armed with live ammunition, while all they had were boards written “to hell with Afrikaans” and for backup, were stones on the ground, which still today, plays the front line of  defense in Palestine.

Pictured, back in the days, car sales in a newspaper and the average price was R5000 for a car, I am not interested whether these were second-hand or not, and R3 790 for a Toyota Corolla. In 2016 it went for plus R300 000. In my visit to high schools where I talk to learners, I ask learners what has changed, why has car prices hiked so much. There is no clear answer, even in our best-resourced schools, and for me, there lies our big problem. We think the war against humanity has ended, yet there are legal, normalised, and civilised ways of life that we cannot explain. Back in the days, building one car needed more hands and took longer, today, robots do a lot, faster and probably for less. Why is the price not coming down?

The youth is not even thinking to question these things today, they get a better education, yet they don’t think there is still strategized and civilised oppression against humanity. What are we really doing with this education? Did we win the fight against instruction in Afrikaans, and against Bantu education to still be good servants of our oppressors? When the banker holds our governments’ hostage by taking the banking system powers from the government (or from the people) to a few individuals, which privately own and controls our money making and policies of banking. The South African Reserve Bank is privately owned, and it regulates the banks, it also submits to the World Bank which is also privately owned.

When are they going to account for the monetary devaluation, why has money buying power dropped so badly? But why would they account if no one is asking these questions? Who told you the war is over, who said put down your weapons, who said the governments are on your side now. What are you doing with this fancy education you are getting today. We still have no cure for AIDS, and we still have the same Pharmaceutical companies bullying the industry with sky-high medical costs. I repeat, what are we really doing with this education? Have we forgotten where we come from, is this the promise land we were hoping to get.

I do not plan to give answers in this article, but I want to challenge the youth and ask them if they do foresee themselves fighting for their children and grandchildren, or we have accepted defeat and we shall always remember those who sacrificed themselves for us but we are not willing to sacrifices ourselves for those coming after us. What is this selfishness breeding among us, how can we have youth dedicating themselves to booze and drugs when the war against our freedom is ongoing?

Personally, I don’t think the war against us is over, it became civilised, and we are slaves with educational papers telling us that we are smart, which I doubt we are. I would like us to remember the youth of 1976 for the war we face ahead.