A schoolgirl plays beside the Hector Pieterson Memorial in Soweto. Pieterson was fatally shot during the Soweto Uprising on June 16, 1976, and is seen in the iconic photograph being carried by 18-year-old student activist Mbuyisa Makhubo, while his sister, Antoinette Sithole, runs alongside them. Fifty years after the uprising, South Africa's youth continue to grapple with a host of challenges, including crime, unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse, and exploitation by those in positions of power, the writer argues.
‘Nation building, that is a loaded term.’
Phumi Mashigo made this remark while interviewing me on the contents of the Open Letter on the International Day of Truth that I wrote in March 2026. My social media timeline has been filled with posts about Nhlamulo Sambo’s murder.
The last one I remember shared two media articles commenting on the pictures chosen by each media house and what they were meant to say about Nhlamulo.
Unintentionally, it plunged me deep into the question of how I, as well as my colleagues at SERI (Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa) envision the nation we are building, and how it would respond to:
