DEPUTY PRESIDENT MASHATILE’S YOUTH DAY SPEECH
“Today we honour and pay tribute to the valiant and fearless young people who stood at the forefront of the liberation struggle on June 16, 1976. Regardless of their youthful stature, the youth of 1976 stood strong in the face of the oppressive system of the apartheid regime. They faced death with unwavering determination, fuelled […]
THE PRESERVATION OF WHITE PRIVILEGE IS ANTITHESIS TO THE NATION’S DREAM TO BE FREE
This year marks the 49th anniversary of June 16, 1976. It is almost half a century of memory with which we are dealing. Through the dialogue held in Soweto this week, we engaged in a struggle against forgetting. In South Africa, June 16, 1976 was the bravest action undertaken, only 16 years after the Sharpeville Massacre […]
REFLECTIONS ON YOUTH DAY 2025 – THE POWER OF OUR HISTORY AND IDENTITY
This year’s Youth Day commemorates 49 years since the June 16 Student Uprisings (also known as the Soweto Massacres), a crucial turning point in the liberation struggle of South Africa. In 1976, Soweto, the unbridled bravery of tens-of-thousands of schoolchildren ignited a countrywide rebellion, setting in motion a transformation that would define the future. The merciless killing of […]
JUNE 16, 1976: THE DAY THE CHILDREN ROARED
“History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.” Each year, as June 16 approaches, our nation stirs with memory, pain, and a yearning to understand. The date, etched in blood and fire, is more than a memorial. It is a mirror—of what was, what is, and what still must […]
SOWETO’S NALEDI HIGH SCHOOL MOULDED MEN AND WOMEN OF INTEGRITY
Having scaled the heights of life, a summit of which I reached having climbed the ladder of success step-by-step, I look back at the role that my township Alma Matar Naledi High School played in shaping me to be a kind of man I became. Naledi High School was a place of growth and discovery. […]
A STUDENT’S SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO UNSUNG STRUGGLE HERO TEACHER FANYANA MAZIBUKO AT 83
It was an afternoon steeped in history, reflection, and the kind of deep camaraderie that only those who have walked the long, unrelenting road of struggle can understand. Today, I spent time with what is referred to as A Circle of Friends. A gathering of stalwarts of the Black Consciousness Movement. These are the men […]
MEC MAILE’S ADDRESS AT THE WINNIE MANDELA PUBLIC LECTURE
“It is an honour to stand before you this evening, on this auspicious occasion of the launch of the Qhakaza: Pain Undefined exhibition curated by one of the most iconic fashion artists of our time, Gift Kgosierileng. This evening, we gather here in memory and celebration of a great revolutionary, Mama Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, whose life and legacy […]