Reflections and Refractions Youth Day 2023
Today, South Africa remembers the events of 16 June 1976.
Over the last few days I have spent mind space pondering the energy of individual agency and the best way to expend this energy to contribute to collective change. I am not old enough to have been alive in the year these events occurred, but they have influenced my life and the South Africa that I grew up in.
If you’re an international reader of this, you may not be familiar with the events of this day in South Africa in 1976 so here’s a brief explanation. Youth Day in South Africa is celebrated annually on the 16th June. It commemorates the courageous youth in Soweto, who in 1976 under the apartheid government, protested against black school children being taught in Afrikaans and English.
As I write this piece and reflect on our history, my thinking is draw to the word refraction.
A refraction is defined as “the change in direction of a wave as it passes from one medium to another”. The South Africa we call home today is in need of a refraction. We need a change of direction and it’s not one that is going to occur naturally, it’s going to be a challenge.
A year ago I tweeted a series of extracts from a book titled Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. In the one tweet, I shared the quote below.
“That is the fundamental nature of gifts: they move, and their value increases with their passage. The fields made a gift of berries to us and we made a gift of them to our father. The more something is shared, the greater its value becomes.”
The youth who stood up for their rights in 1976 gave us the gift of time, time that we otherwise would not have had. The decisions that we make today will impact the South Africa that is shaped tomorrow. I urge us as young African’s not to waste this gift.
Through the combination of young minds with youthful energy and the support of intergenerational exchanges we can change our present and future.
We are dependent on one another to get through the struggles and challenges that we face together. These words capture the essence of this far better than I ever could.
“Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”, a person is a person through other people.
Making time to reflect is indeed important, however as a country South Africa needs change. We need a refraction. As the youth, we have a role to play in creating the direction and speed of this change.
Don’t be idle and merely accept things the way they are. We can all become active participants of the present and future we know we can build.
In the words of Buckminister Fuller, “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims”.
