Honouring Sobukwe’s dream
SHARPEVILLE Day, March 21, 1960 should always be a reminder of similar struggles.
This is some part of history that refuses to die. Many have always stated the Sharpeville incident was one of the turning points in the history of the liberation Struggle.
When the Sharpeville township was started in 1942, it was meant to accommodate the overflowing Top Location.
However, nobody knew that less than two decades later this “model township” would explode and embarrass the racist apartheid government.
In killing fields, in front of the police station, bullets riddled the backs of fleeing and unarmed women and men who had come to protest against the pass laws and other unjust practices.
Challenges had also arisen in the “model township” which until 1960 was quiet compared to other townships around the Rand. Yet, many problems that arose in Sharpeville five decades ago have resurfaced years later, and this includes landlessness and homelessness.
The pass laws prevented many jobless to find jobs in the Rand. Robert Sobukwe and colleagues believed the nationalist Struggle should be guided and owned by Africans.
This Sharpeville Day we need to think of the sacrifices of the Sharpeville and Langa townships’ people who braved apartheid’s artillery like many before and after 1960.
The struggle for human rights continues today. The Pass Law is no longer there but new frustrating challenges have resurfaced.
We still need the bravery of the people of Sharpeville and Langa who dared to stand for their right to dignity. But we still need to struggle.
We need a humanising education that liberates our schools and we have a right to stand for schools where no child will die in a pit latrine when she has gone for education, a basic right.
People should stand up for land, for they cannot be roaming landless in their country of birth. People still need to stand up against corruption in government and all public institutions.
Each Sharpeville Day we should remember Sobukwe and his African dream.
We have recently witnessed a number of human rights violations in the past few months.
The Life Esidimeni case demonstrated to us how psychiatric patients were treated by callous, unsympathetic structures of our society. Many of these souls died and were buried like paupers. We heard tales of how they were dehumanised while being moved.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that disregards the poor, and many victims of injustice tend to be black. It is always a coincidence that those who suffer injustices in many instances have these characteristics. People find themselves fighting for human dignity and other basic rights.
It is sad to expose the children to more of these indignities. Our children continue to cry out for rights from a young age and society does not always listen to its young. But then we are surprised by the wayward ways of the children when they grow older.
Two little girls from AB Xuma Primary were violated by a man of the law who was supposed to help them. Molested first by a scholar patroller last year, the young girls were last week violated by an adult who represented the law, who was supposed to safeguard their rights.
There are many similar incidents, sometimes never revealed, where society is failing young children.
It is criminal to grab even the most basic rights from young citizens whose life should breathe renewal and hope in our society. It cannot be right to kill a teen who “had stolen” sunflower seeds as was the case by two farmers in Coligny.
Poor families struggle with fewer rights in a brutal society. Poverty becomes a perpetual punishment. The poor are punished and are failed by various components of society.
The law is usually uncaring when you are indigent.
Unscrupulous religious sects prey on the poor using their vulnerability by promising them heaven and earth as they milk them for their money.
Decades after the freedom day, many still have never seen the better in their households; joblessness, hunger and inability to access education are among the topmost struggles that make the poor realise that society is not just for all.
The call for decolonisation of education is another call for justice; it is a call to address the historic epistemicide that saw African knowledge marginalised and obfuscated by Western knowledge.
The call for decolonisation of education institutions is a call to ensure that African knowledge is presented on an equal level with the rest of the ecology of knowledge.
Decolonisation is also about
It is criminal to grab even the most basic rights from young citizens whose lives should breathe renewal and hope in our society. It cannot be right to kill a teen who ‘had stolen’ flower seeds
respect and dignity of the African. As long as African universities fail to decolonise, we will continue perpetuating injustice in African institutions. In a speech at Fort Hare, the young Mangaliso Sobukwe called for an African university to lead in African thought.
It is only a pity that Sobukwe’s perspicacity is dimly remembered, even by those who profess to swear by his name. Annually one witnesses lacklustre events in his name that paradoxically sound a death knell to his memory.
With debates around pan-Africanism and decolonisation, his name should ring in corridors, in households and in dongas. His dream of a free Africa was a dream of justice and freedom. He belonged to Africa and the world.
As we celebrate this day today, our speech should be unequivocal – Remember Sobukwe!
Sobukwe pointed out that “Africa and humanity are inseparable”. He said Africans need spiritual freedom and one is certain that those who have been embellished with human rights will be able to pronounce these spiritual freedoms.
He also said that Africans need to preach the doctrine of love for Africa and I would also say that love is inextricable with human rights.
The undying spirit of thinkers such as Sobukwe should always make us magnify our love and realisation of human dignity. One who is respected and humanised will always remember Africa and love Africa. Our children need to be loved and not violated, our communities need to be heard and not ignored.
Finally, we need to constantly remember the ideals embraced by icons such as Sobukwe. The genius and patriotism of such icons should ring.
These were the harbingers of some of our freedoms.
Msila is a director at Unisa’s Change Management Unit. He writes in his personal capacity.