Authors and beneficiaries of black pain still on top of their game

AS THE 46th anniversary of June 16, 1976 was marked last week, blacks and whites in this country were crossing my mind as I tried to put a perspective on the meaning of this day.

In my mind is a picture of where Hector Pietersen, had he lived, could be today. Featured in the frame of that picture is Seth Mazibuko who was marking his 15th birthday on the eve of the nation’s revolt against the system of black oppression.

History proudly records that Mazibuko was one of the student leaders at the helm of the Soweto Students Representative Council (SSRC), one of the black consciousness organisations banned by apartheid era Justice Minister Jimmy Kruger on October 19, 1977.

Not missing in the picture is Helen Zille. Born in 1951, Zille, a privileged white person, was 26 years of age in 1977 reporting on the death of Steve Biko, aged 30 at the time of his death.

Biko was born on December 18, 1946, died September 12, 1977, as the 46th prisoner to be killed in police custody. History records Zille as a pro-democracy figure, anti-apartheid activist and journalist who exposed the cover-up around the death of Black Consciousness leader Biko while working for the Rand Daily Mail.

Today, Zille, 71, is the federal chairperson of the DA, at the front end of the party and in her words primed to “ending racial politics” and at the helm of leadership teaching democracy, rule of law and constitutional compliance. All of which is absent to black life.

Were Biko still alive today, he would have been 76 this year. The authors and beneficiaries of black pain in old South Africa are still on top of their game. Inexplicably, blacks remain dunderheads behind their desks, as permanent students, taught and failing their “democracy lessons”.

In the year 13-year-old Hector Pietersen was killed, 1976, the current DA leader, John Steenhuisen, was two months old, born on March 25, 1976.

On the eve of that national historic awakening day, Seth Mazibuko was marking his 15th birthday. Upon incarceration, the young Mazibuko hardly had the right size prison garments to wear. Mazibuko’s prison clothes were tailor-made to fit his tiny frame as an uninitiated inmate to begin his sentence at Robben Island.

Take a closer look at a picture of my imaginary people’s lives today, had they lived. Pietersen would be 59. Look at where Mazibuko’s 60-year-old white counterparts are now.

Steenhuisen, 46, 15 years younger than Mazibuko and a student squaring against an oppressive system in 1976, is the leader of the DA with the resources to take cases to court to challenge the land question in his favour as much as he can wage a battle against “cadre deployment”.

The point to make is the opportunities that South Africa today presents to both white and black lives.

The system that Mazibuko and Pietersen stood up to, and against, did not care that these were children with a chance to a future that Zille and Steenhuisen have fully become part of.

Fortunes for black life have not been as enduring. The last step for Pietersen on June 16 was the grave. Mazibuko’s next step was prison.

The Class of 1976 was clear that the fight was more than a change of musical chairs, it was a complete overhaul of the system.

If the system has not changed, does not change, the devilish system is no blessing to write home about even if it were to be angels in charge of it.

Think of how formidable a foe that was faced on that day. Think of how the young were the ones that had reached a point of exasperation beyond human endurance.

“Forward ever, backward never” was the slogan. Children denied being children had not the luxury to play. A fight was thrust upon their tiny shoulders. But even with the acquired power students demonstrated on the day, elders were still worthy of their mighty respect. Respect was earned rather than demanded.