16 June, Youth Day in the Transkei

Tomorrow we celebrate what we now call ‘Youth Day’.  Here in Coffee Bay, rural Transkei, previous apartheid homeland you can sense a little something in the air.  It is long weekend, some tourists have arrived at the backpackers and we also expect the 'shebeens' to be pumping tomorrow and won't be surprised to hear of some stabbings or other violent acts happening amidst the drunkenness.  

But how many of us actually remember what Youth Day is about.  37 years ago, during the apartheid regime, Afrikaans (together with English) was introduced as the languages in which children be instructed in all black schools in South Africa.  In fact, they were forced to use these languages.  Indigenous languages would only be used for religion, music and physical culture.

This meant that black children would rather have to focus on the understanding of the language than learn much about the subject taught in it.  English as international language was of course preferred over apartheid associated Afrikaans, but because the government was Afrikaans dominated it wanted to reverse the decline of Afrikaans among black South Africans by enforcing the 1974 decree that recognized only Afrikaans and English as official languages.

This sparked much rebellion that eventually grew to the mass rally of June 16, 1976, when between 10 000 – 20 000 students walked in protest to Orlando stadium.  The protest, which was intended to be peaceful, turned violent after students took another route when their intended route was barricaded off by the police.  The first shot was fired by a policeman, who said that some of the children were throwing stones.  This started panic and the police let their dogs loose on the children who retaliated by throwing stones at the dogs.  Then the police started shooting directly at the children.  23 People, including 2 whites died on that day.

Following this event, The ANC was established as leading party in the liberation struggle and the Soweto uprising was a turning point to white rule in South Africa that eventually led to the release of Mandela and the end of apartheid.

I think it is important for us to remember our history and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again.  I also ask myself what can be done by us and our government to help the people, that were previously oppressed by our forefathers, because I find it ironic that now, 37 years later, they are still being taught in English (no longer Afrikaans) and mostly the rural people don’t understand English, so after all these years their education has not improved much.