Youth Day

Today is Youth Day in South Africa. It is a national holiday celebrated every June 16 that commemorates the infamous "Soweto Uprising". In 1976, young black students in Soweto, a community near Johannesburg, rioted to protest being forced to learn the Afrikaans language in school. Afrikaans is a language that was associated with apartheid and thus, the forced use of it in schools was seen as oppressive by the black community. Thousands and thousands of students went on strike from school in a protest that was meant to be peaceful, but were met by a police barricade. The scene quickly escalated when the police threw tear gas at the unarmed marching students. In retaliation, the students began throwing rocks at the police officers. One of the male police officers then fired a shot which sent the students into a panic. Students ran screaming from the scene. Police continued firing at the fleeing youths however, and many of the black students died that day while attempting to run away.

June 16 is remembered not only as a day of mourning for the lives lost that day, but also as a day when young people stood up for what they believed in. They stood united, as one voice, and insisted that they be heard in a country which at that time, under apartheid, was largely divided amongst atrocious inequality. This year, the holiday is even more timely, since the country is currently undergoing a large civil servant strike that has been going on for a few weeks. Many students across the country haven't even been able to attend school because their teachers are striking, along with public health care workers and other civil servants. The strikers and the government are in a deadlock about improving wages and it doesn't appear as though either side is ready to budge anytime soon. In terms of my own personal interests here in South Africa, this striking is of particular concern because it means that poorer AIDS patients, who would normally be accessing public health services, may not be getting their antiretroviral medications. This has the potential to create mass resistance to antiretroviral medications!!!

Today for Youth Day, I attended a Hoops for Hope event with Ilya. Hoops for Hope is a charity that Ilya is involved with here, which teaches life skills to vulnerable children through basketball. We went to a coloured township here in Hout Bay, which was quite the experience. I have seen the conditions that black people live in within the black townships, but the coloured people live in shocking poverty as well. There are some brick houses, but most homes are made out of tin roofs and various scrap materials and there is a large amount of overcrowding. As we were driving through, we had to be careful not to hit the many dogs and toddlers who were running along the dirt roads. At one point, one of the Hoops volunteers had to use the bathroom, so I went with her into one of the shanties. It was crazy inside. Just scraps of material strewn together. It is a wonder how people survive the winter cold here with such poor shelter. The Hoops event was part of a larger event targetting the coloured youths, which promoted saying no to drugs and HIV/AIDS education.

Living in Hout Bay is an amazing opportunity to be reminded of the beauty of South Africa, as well as the inequality that still exists everyday. We live in the affluent white section in the middle of Hout Bay, but to one side of us is a large black township and to the other side is the coloured township. Each day we have the choice of going to ritzy mainly white shops or the dodgy mainly black shops on the next block. Each day we drive our car home from school, passing numerous poor black and coloured people standing on the sides of the road, waiting for someone generous to stop and give them a lift home from a day's work. Each day we go to bed, setting our alarm, as each of our white neighbours also do, so that we may sleep easy, feeling as though we are protected from impoverished burglars. It is a truly bizarre life here. One of attempted racial mixing and ever-present racial fears. From what I understand, it is a vast improvement from the apartheid era, but it is hardly the 'Rainbow Nation' that Archbishop Desmond Tutu has dreamed of.