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June 16 comes around and public discourse invariably turns to how the “youth of today” are so unlike the youth of 1976 and how there’s no evidence of what the current youth is “fighting for”. But this is a dubious narrative that contradicts itself.
On the one hand, it asserts that young people have simply not had any reason to “fight” as they are “free”, enjoying a freedom they didn’t earn. Young people have been described as supposedly “born free”, an appellation thrust on them with no real consideration for what kind of society they are expected to be “free” in, or what that freedom should look like.
So they are expected to shut up and be grateful, but are told this by the same people who are bemoaning their lack of “activism”, or who are judging them based on the handful of young people they see on TV or hear about in communities.
Young people continue to bear the brunt of all of South Africa’s challenges, as well as the expectation to change the status quo.
The contributions and lived experiences of young people today are largely disregarded and made invisible because the activism and realities of young people make South Africans uncomfortable.
When today’s youths take to the streets demanding a new curriculum, they are seen as enemies of the system, rather than active participants in a better society for all. Their actions are considered illegitimate because, just like the youth of 1976, they are breaking out of the places meant to confine them and are challenging all structures of power.
South Africa’s youth is in many ways rebelling against the systems its parents/leaders have been unable and/or unwilling to change. In this way, the transformation debate at universities was quickly discredited and later co-opted by the youth.
It is not good enough for many young people that we just discuss race – we must discuss how race has coddled misogyny and patriarchy, how the black middle class has not been the great gateway to freedom for all other black people or how homophobia or anti-poor sentiment has come about. Young people are asking the difficult questions, the questions that have been avoided for the sake of peace.
If we are going to use the youth of 1976 as a benchmark to criticise the current youth, we must be willing to admit it is still necessary for young people to take matters into their own hands. It is dishonest to read 1976 as merely a critique of political power; it also critiqued established hierarchies of age and leadership¬– and this still needs to be challenged and unhinged.
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