Learn from the past and from icons, pupils told
BEFORE the youth of South Africa can take charge of their future, they first need to be educated about the past and the role women played in the liberation movement.
During a remembrance talk for fallen struggle hero Nomvume Mnyazi, who was the first casualty of the 1976 student uprising in New Brighton, advocate Vusi Pikoli said he saw Mnyazi being shot by apartheid police.
Pikoli said when Port Elizabeth erupted and was in flames in August that year, Mnyazi was the first casualty in the fight against the Bantu education system.
Mnyazi died at the age of 21 in Mendi Road, New Brighton, on August 18 of that year.
“When the police came and people started running away, Nomvume was shot but we could not go to her because there were still police in the street,” he said.
“Eventually we got out and helped, but she died later.”
Pikoli said former Eastern Cape SABC boss, Zola Yeye, accompanied by a friend, took Mnyazi to hospital where she was declared dead.
The advocate said even though Mnyazi died fighting the good fight, she participated fully and willingly, unlike school children who recently died in pit toilets in the country’s schools.
Pikoli said the struggle for education now was of a different kind as people were fighting over jobs, and the standard of learning in schools around the country.
The Bayworld conference venue was filled with high school pupils from around Nelson Mandela Bay, and was attended by Bay struggle icon Khusta Jack. The event was a joint venture between the Eastern Cape Department of Sports, Recreation, Arts and Culture and Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism.
EFF councillor and municipal public accounts commitstruggle tee chairwoman Yoliswa Yako said women of today were fighting a different kind of struggle to the struggles fought by Mnyazi.
Yako said women were fighting against patriarchy and for equal opportunities in the workplace.
She said South Africans knew a lot about their male icons, but not so much about their female counterparts.
Yako said it was hard to define the character of a woman who died for causes she believed in, like Mnyazi who died for her principles.
“The system we’re fighting today is a system that puts the black woman last,” she said.
“The fact that we fight for jobs, fight for education, fighting for emancipation, we’re also fighting our father, our husbands and uncles.
“We are fighting to exist when we don’t have to explain to anyone that we are worthy.”
One of the speakers, Zandisile Makina, said there were previous attempts to commemorate Mnyazi but they had not come to fruition.
Makina suggested that a statue be erected in honour of Mnyazi, or even a hall named after her.
The system we’re fighting is a system that puts the black woman last