This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

16th June 2007

View online here

It goes without saying that June 16th will always be remembered in South Africa as a symbol of energy over oppression, of tragedy turned into victory, of struggle successfully fought. Or does it? Apart from a few well-attended rallies and the odd festive gathering, last year’s thirtieth anniversary celebrations were fairly low-key affairs. In many instances, the average age of participants suggested that most of those commemorating the student uprising were contemporaries of the class of 1976, again raising the familiar question: should we be concerned about the political apathy of South Africa’s youth? This is a difficult question to answer, phrased as it is in generalisations.

For starters, there are the problematic parameters of “youth”. Our thirteen post-Apartheid years have run on such a curve of acceleration that, amongst the more privileged and educated, there are effectively three generations separating those in the halcyon years of high-school, those involved in the varied highbrow (and occasionally reckless) pursuits of tertiary education, and those engaging in the alternating drudgery and excitement of starting a career. Moreover, we are not yet at a stage where we can talk about South Africa’s youth without using the ugly old racial categories. Beyond those, the barriers of wealth and poverty remain.

Even if we think of the broadest possible definition of “youth”, however, the notion of “apathy” complicates things all over again. At worst, it implies a lack of historical awareness and a political indifference springing from the luxury of liberation – and with so many freedoms to enjoy, so much local and international popular culture to absorb, so much money to spend, there isn’t enough time to dwell on the past. Perhaps, after all, we want a widening group of trendy, cosmopolitan, brand-conscious youth; maybe it’s a healthy sign that politics isn’t cool. On the other end of the economic scale, we can hardly accuse those who are kept busy just surviving, forging a living in the harshest of conditions, of historical ignorance; they are re-living that history every day.

The threat remains, however, that despite – or even because of – an annual public holiday, the deep significance of June 16th will be lost. It would be a great tragedy if the name of Hector Pietersen lost its vitality, reduced through lip service and lazy symbolism to a glib recognition of an enormous event. South African youth, whether celebrated as hip’n’happening or accused of being superficial, need to find a way to make the currency of ideas as crucial as Rands and Dollars. One way of doing so is to look at June 16th from a few different angles.

Since 1994, of course, it has also been Comrades Marathon day. More’s the pity that certain political players, deeming this to be a detraction from the Youth Day celebrations, insisted that the running date be pushed to Sunday 17th this year. Thirteen years ago, the decision to move from the 31st May deeper into winter made things a little more unpleasant for runners at the chilly pre-dawn start, but the change undoubtedly brought a healthy impetus to June 16th. Granted, few of the marathoners are young by any stretch of the imagination. We are told that numbers are dwindling, that the popular appeal of Comrades is on the decline. But on just one day each year, this event has had, and still has, more power than any other sport in South Africa to encourage racial social integration – in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands nogal, which some see as the last outpost of Apartheid attitudes. Despite transformational successes, rugby, soccer and even cricket continue to be played and supported as if, by and large, entrance to the clubs and stadia was still somehow divided along racial lines. By contrast, those pounding the tarmac from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, and those cheering them on, demonstrate a diversity that cannot fail to impress even the most cynical observer.

Cries of ‘The Russians are coming!’ resound, but isn’t it great that three-time winner Vladimir Kotov is now a South African citizen (even if he can’t speak any of South Africa’s languages particularly well)? Members of the intelligentsia who find sport a mindless pursuit should at least have been interested in the debate a few years ago over whether or not he deserved the prize for the first South African home. The socio-politically inclined could see the enthusiasm of Russian athletes for the Comrades as yet another manifestation of the historical parallels and curious links between that country and our own, where words like “revolution”, “socialist”, “workers” and “communist” have a common root but a different meaning.

All of which brings us on to those aspects of June 16th that have their origins in other places and other times, but are by no means alien to the discussions we should be having in South Africa right now. Opening our country’s windows on the world can change the light in which we view ourselves, our nation, our history. Those who travel far and wide discover with pride that home is the most exhilarating place to be – and this is not an experience limited to the lucky few who can afford to travel on airplanes. Travel in the mind is more important, and entails more than just the DSTV Travel Channel. Literature (broadly defined, not just books, but songs, stories, drama, dance; something that is accessible to all, even in a country with a high illiteracy rate) also celebrates an important anniversary on South Africa’s Youth Day.

James Joyce’s long and complex novel, Ulysses, tells the story of a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, a painfully ordinary man. On June 16th 1904, Bloom, an Irishman, goes about his largely mundane business in the city of Dublin, while Joyce weaves the almost random associations of Bloom’s conscious and unconscious thoughts into a web of Irishness. As Stephen Gray and others have pointed out, the content of the novel is hardly as far removed from South Africa as one might expect. The story of Ireland is, in many ways, the story of a liberation struggle against a colonial oppressor (England). The Irish celebrate June 16th as “Bloomsday”: a day of telling stories and singing songs, of commemorating the achievements of the past and affirming their identity in the present. Of course, they also get drunk on Guinness and Irish whiskey, but that’s not as important.

Furthermore, June 16th happens to be the day on which the first woman flew into space. Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (as her name suggests, she was also Russian) was born into poverty but worked her way into the top rank of a male-dominated field. This tale, too, is relevant in South Africa. We have taken great steps to ensure that women’s rights are enshrined constitutionally, but on issues ranging from workplace equality to domestic abuse, we have a long way to go.

Talking about rights, have you ever heard of the Miranda Rights? Sure you have: ‘You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attourney ...’. Long before they became the clinching lines in series upon series of cops-and-robbers TV crime shows, those words were established in a seminal court case (Miranda vs Arizona), completed on the 16th of June 1966, that helped ensure fair processes of law in America. At a time when the fundamental basis of constitutional rights and freedoms in the USA is being undermined by the corporate-theocratic Bush regime, it is important for us to evaluate what we have inherited and continue to absorb from the world’s superpower.

The civil rights movement in the States had much in common with our own liberation struggle; what barriers to racial equity remain in that country, and what in ours? Numerous American companies benefited from Apartheid; what economic influences persist? Should we be more cautious of the hegemonic American-bred consumerist ethos, and the homogeneity of popular culture that comes with it? We lap up the second-hand junk of Hollywood and the TV networks, much of which is about as damaging to public intellectual life as George “Dubya” himself. Rather than passively receiving whatever bland pop culture is pawned off on us, or even imposed on us, let’s be a bit more critical. We need something more cerebral than yet another reality series based on the revised Warhol formula (fifteen episodes of fame, rather than fifteen minutes).

Our windows on the world must show us more than the clothes we can wear, the music we can listen to or the cars we can drive. They should tell us about other liberation struggles, from Russia to Ireland, and where they have gone right, and where they have gone wrong. They should expand our horizons, allowing us – even forcing us – to develop a broader range of interests and a wider frame of reference.

There are some South Africans who exploit the propaganda value of June 16th. There are some who think it’s a public holiday for sitting hungover in front of the TV. Worst of all, there are many for whom the day carries no resonance apart from the usual bourgeois litany: they get free off-peak minutes to talk on their cellphone while shopping at YDE before listening to sterilised boy-band girl-bands at Musica or hip-hopping it to some meat market dancing drinking hole in shiny over-priced over-insured hatchbacks. (Was that last sentence a tough read? Try Ulysses.)

There’s nothing wrong with pop culture, as long as we remember that there’s a lot more to experience in this wide world, especially in this world south of the Limpopo. Politics need not be boring; sport need not be simple-minded; literature need not be obscure. The almost-forgotten vision of an African Renaissance, if it is to be realised, needs Renaissance men and women (young and old) who can enjoy all these, and more.