It is 50 years after June 1976 and the children of Soweto are increasingly growing aware that the fiery and prophetic fire and spirit of much vaunted revolution has faded.
The African National Congress power is on a serious decline with its hands weakened on all the levers of State power by coalition government.
Looking back at the last 50 years, the angry, defiant, and self-sacrificing youths who were willing to confront the mightiest military state in the African continent have grown soft. It comes with age. When you over 55 years you become soft around the waist and the frontal part of the brain.
The privileged with cushy government and private sector jobs are now the first to advise their angry, go-for-broke offspring to ‘cool it.’ They are impatient and dismissive of anything that threatens the stability of what they perceive to be democracy.
After all, they have learned that revolution is not an overnight thing.
Some of the disadvantaged who have failed to gain access to State power, positions, resources, and opportunities are fanning the fires. They have gained nothing. Thus, they are bitter, frustrated, and angry. Above all, they have nothing to lose.
This is the teaching of experience and history.
The children of Soweto are now old, in their late 50s, 60s and 70s, now. For the last 30 years they have moved out of the arena of conflict to bury Nelson Mandela, watch some former exiles turn into multi-millionaires, pursue idealistic economic policies, set new State priorities, understand the corruption of political power and, above all, want to secure the little they have achieved as individuals.
South Africa is not a society at war with itself or the world, now. The pursuit of violence, destruction of property and desire to kill is not what makes the now aged June 16 generation come alive.
What is required from them now is not violent confrontation but to become part of the system they fought against. The aim is to bring about change in a peaceful manner that will leave the country united and intact, whatever that means.
This country belongs to whites as much as blacks, including African, Asian and European migrants who come to settle, here.
There is no moral justification for violent attacks and assault on properties of illegal African immigrants, if any.
For more than 30 years now, there has been an increase in conflict between the government and the people rising to demand better service delivery.
Ironically, this has resulted in self-inflicted pain and misery in black lives.
Many of the townships have, increasingly, become battle areas leaving homes, public buildings burnt and dead bodies.
But the last 30 years have, unavoidably, changed the behaviour and attitude of the youth of June 1976 now beyond middle age. It is struggle fatigue. Or the desire to make money and secure a comfortable lifestyle.
It is idiocy to assume that people who have been through more than four ‘revolutions,’ if you can call them that – 1960, 1976, 1985 and 1990, for instance – would not be battle scarred and weary.
There are some over 50-year olds in Azapo or the PAC, for example, who want to pretend that they still have the passion to breath fire out of their mouths and have not changed.
They entertain the illusion of being lifelong radical revolutionaries. Everything has its time and purpose.
In fact, the rhetorical revolutionaries find status and shallow self-fulfilment from rousing talk and radical rhetoric over hard drinks. This is all an adventure to bring back a dead past.
But for many children of Soweto, there is no going back to the past. 1976 is a fading history.
The best lesson that can be learned from it is not to repeat its mistakes, if any. But it is difficult for South African activists to learn from history.
In the next four years we are not going to reach the National Development Plan target of transforming the most unequal society in the world by 2030.
We have been failed by the activists and children of 1976.
Instead, those with the energy and time must be about the creative adventure of nation building and social cohesion. Everybody is condemned to make the most of the bad: inequality, injustice, unemployment, hopelessness.
Time and energy must be channelled to promoting democratic existentialism that promotes a spirit of self-determination, responsibility and accountability where people help themselves.
Every citizen, woman and child must be encouraged to be an agent that contributes to a just and equal society that the June 16 generation was determined to build. They really tried but failed themselves.
The youthful search for meaning through violence and self-indulgent destructive behaviour, especially in communities and the governing party, is not part of the nation building agenda.
The idea of burning down buildings and institutions that are bridges to creating opportunities for success and achievement, especially for the young, will not take the country to a bright future.
Interestingly, many children of 1976 are cynical towards this dramatic explosion of deep rumbles of discontent and political infighting. They see it as self-destruction and inconvenience.
Most of them have learned that, as Oliver Tambo warned, fighting for freedom is easiest compared to running Africa’s most sophisticated economy.
There is now fear that if their own children are failing to take responsibility to build their individual lives, they are condemned to suffer from the scourge of drugs, sexual promiscuity and existential meaninglessness. With drug abuse and crime on the increase, it will be a hopeless future.
It is always tempting for the under-40 years or unemployed youth to think that life in the new South Africa is an endless party where all you need is a government tender or a rich parent in government.
But this is delusional.
One of the greatest achievements of the children of Soweto was to deliver the “revolution” through peaceful means.
When you have been through a period of upheaval and dramatic resistance, it is tempting to avoid repeating mistakes of the past, especially violence and struggle that leads to death in exile and loss of life opportunities.
Now we know that exile and armed struggle were not as exciting as they were made out to be when joining Umkhonto we Sizwe was fashionable. There are no winners in war. Worse, we have far too many peace time heroes, including decorated generals who never fired a single shot at the enemy.
With 1976 came the collapse of important values like respect for elders, accountability, the value of education and freedom of choice and promotion of peace in the community, among others.
At the time it was believed that the end justifies the means.
All the heroic icons of the struggle, especially Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela are dead, now. They only live in the ideals and principles that have not been translated into reality. It is a monumental failure.
The new times in a post-apartheid society demand that the heirs of their selflessness, self-sacrifice and service to the nation and world should have opened up an uncharted future that began in 1994.
It should have marked a turning point that beckoned a future of justice and equality in a new society.
The Constitution outlines the values of security and comfort, work, education and work as the way to a happy life that enjoys freedom and democracy.
Over the last 30 years, the children of the children of Soweto have grown into misguided aging adults. The democracy has matured and the heirs need to be seen to act in a responsible manner that is based on human rights.
There is no need for polarization between the young and old. The rise of the idealistic Economic Freedom Fighters and Rise Mzansi, for example, are a welcome development that should be gadfly in the conscience of the rulers of the country.
There was a time in the mid-1980s – with the rise of the Mass Democratic Movement – when the children of Soweto moved together with their white counterparts in their need to envision a majority society based democratic principles.
The translation of these ideals into foundational principles enshrined in the Constitution had created the hope that a just and equal society was attainable.
But alas, that South Africa is the most unequal society in the world today.
The children of Soweto are now adults who are approaching old age. Their concern is to secure their pensions, live in comfortable homes in exclusive suburbs, look after their afflicted health and secure a bright future for their ungrateful offspring.
Those who are over 55 will not be drinking up any revolutionary brew that will result in the setback of what has been attained over the last 30 years. Realpolitik dictates that they have to make the best of the bad supremacist and racist capitalism. The new struggle is to find security and comfort in the most unequal society on earth.
Black people do not control the economy but they are in power, whatever that means.
As a result, the risk of the June 16 generation becoming tombstones of the betrayal of African dreams and aspirations – just like Mandela is to some, now – cannot be ruled out.
It is for this reason that the children of 1976 must hand over the baton to their offspring to take responsibility to build the kind of the society that they and their children will live in.
The children of Soweto have exhausted their historical role. It was a mistake to think that being in exile or fighting for freedom entitled anybody to run the country or be a Minister or Premier.
Many of those who were activists in 1976 that fought for freedom have long grown soft in the belly and the brain.
What is very clear is that it is the duty of the young to improve upon what their parents and predecessors have failed to do. It is time for the Mzansi youth to rise to create the future they want.
Alas, that they have chosen to follow in the footsteps of their parents to be part of a supremacist capitalist economic system that glorifies selfishness and greed.
