Mrs Nomkhitha Mashinini views a collage compiled in honour of her son, Tsietsi Mashinini, one of the leaders of the 1976 Soweto student uprising, in Johannesburg. The youth of 2026 must mobilise and become politically conscious in the same self-sacrificing spirit of the 1976 generation to ensure their voices are heard in the corridors of power and across society at large, says the writer.
Edwin Naidu
Fifty years on from the Soweto Uprising on June 16, 1976 the struggle continues. But where are the voices of youth in South Africa?
If the youth of 1976 proved that courage has no age, what is going on with the younger generation? For the youth of 1976, defiance was not born out of privilege or power, but out of a willingness to stand up and fight an unjust system.
South Africa’s democracy was shaped by teenagers who refused to turn the other cheek. Every June, we are reminded that the bravest decisions in our history were made by those the country tried hardest to silence, the youth.
