History education through content series
“IT’S about time we just move on, get over apartheid, and stop playing the victim.”
“I wasn’t responsible for apartheid, why must I suffer for sins of the past?”
“Black economic empowerment is apartheid in reverse!”
“In the new South Africa there are no opportunities for whites.”
Growing anxieties around dwindling economic prospects have been nurtured among many white South Africans and have fuelled an attitude of intolerance and fatigue around retrospections of South Africa’s shameful past. When one is ignorant of history, it may be extremely tempting to look at the above statements and accept them as true, however; we need to be deliberate in understanding our history in order to realise the work we still need to do to achieve a society based on justice and equal access to opportunity for all.
The Sharpeville Massacre of March 21, 1960 was a trajectory changing moment for South Africa. Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe who founded the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania challenged the way in which the ANC had traditionally led strategies and initiatives to advocate for equal human rights; freedom in South Africa.
By shifting the methods of protest to go beyond submitting petitions; beginning to focus on challenging systemic conditions that enabled the subjugation of the majority of the country such as Pass Laws; Sobukwe and the leadership of the PAC entered into a form of protest and civil disobedience that had the potential of collapsing the racist capitalist system that subjugated Indians, Coloured and Africans in particular.
As we remember the efforts of those who fought for the liberation of people in South Africa who were classified as “non-white” through commemorating Human Rights Day… I have come to identify in my work that 61 years since the Sharpeville Massacre; many people in our society are not educated enough (or perhaps not honest enough) to be able to draw the links of our historical context, policies and laws to the inequalities and social challenges we face currently within our country.
To enrich the level of discussion we are having in our society, I have decided to do some work in producing some punchy and informative content pieces that tell the story of South Africa in a way that is considered and backed by facts.
In a 11-minute video titled, Is it time to get over Apartheid? on YouTube, we explore race and inequality in South Africa by delving into topics around education, unemployment, income inequality and poverty. This is the first of what will be a series of content pieces our organisation Cohesion Collective will produce.
The aim of these content videos is to educate everyday South Africans (especially our youth) in how the history of our education system, economy, political system; legislation – to name a few – have shaped the unique socio-economic and political challenges we face as a nation.