June 16 in South Africa is Youth Day: a national holiday celebrating the youth who participated in the 1976 Soweto student uprising—and by extension all young people today. By asserting their aspirations and agency in the face of oppression, the students of 1976 energized the anti-apartheid struggle and catapulted South African youth into international headlines.
Over four decades later, the headlines about youth in South Africa are sobering. Official estimates of overall unemployment hover around 28%, with youth (officially ages 15-34) disproportionately affected: by some measures, youth unemployment is over 50% nationwide. A large percentage of youth experience “multidimensional poverty,” a devastating intersection of low income and poor health, education, and housing. Inequality is strongly associated with race: the latest census (2011) indicated that nearly 70% of black African youth were living below the poverty line, compared to 5% of their white counterparts. And since that census, inequality between a wealthy few and the impoverished majority has only grown.
Of course, statistics are slippery: they can be derived and interpreted in various ways. Yet taken with that proverbial grain of salt, they also indicate the scope and scale of issues that affect real, individual human beings.
I spent Youth Day 2018 with Lungile, whom I’ve known since she was a participant in the Youth Work Scheme (YWS) in 1998. Lungile, now in her 40s, lives with her children—ages 16 and 24—in a house she received from the government as part of the Reconstruction and Development program. It’s a tiny cinder-block, tin-roof structure in a far-flung area of Soweto that she has creatively partitioned into one bedroom and kitchen/living area. Lungile works the night shift at a post office warehouse, sorting mail – two minibus taxi rides away and nearly two hours from her home.
Before I arrived at her house on Youth Day, Lungile sent a message to the group chat I’ve set up on WhatsApp for the former YWS participants: “Happy Adult Day, no youth amongst us.” To which Nthuthuko promptly replied, “Siyi youth endala” (we’re old youth!)
Feeling youthfully old (or is that agedly youthful?), Lungile and I set out on an impromptu Youth Day tour on Saturday, June 16, filming as we went. Partly this was an experiment, to see what it takes to create a short participant-driven video. She suggested our stops, and narrated.
Youth Day seems to have morphed a bit, from honoring and celebrating the youth who participated in the June16, 1976 uprising to a ‘good time for all’ kind of day. At least this is what I picked up from our (admittedly small) sampling of spots in Soweto.
Our first stop was Lungile’s sister’s house in Meadowlands with extra rooms in back, a neatly tended grassy lawn in front and potted plants along the side; we picked up her 11-year-old niece and headed for Orlando Stadium.
In the June 16, 1976 uprising, Orlando Stadium was the students’ destination where they planned to hold a rally. Groups of girls and boys streamed out of Soweto schools, joining the protest against the imposition of the Afrikaans language as the medium of instruction in education. But the students never made it to the stadium that day. Their protest was disrupted by the police, who opened fire on the students. Over 500 died, and many more were injured.
Arriving at the stadium gates, we learned that the concert inside was nearly over, and we were turned away. But our next stop, the Hector Pieterson Memorial, was hopping and festive. Hector Pieterson was the first child killed when police opened fire on the student protestors in 1976. On Youth Day 2018, wreaths adorned his tombstone, a troupe of girls danced and sang, people took photos in front of the famous image of the slain Hector Pieterson and got “June 16” and images of Mandela stamped on their faces.
But that experience was clearly outshone, for many of the kids there, by a Lamborghini that roared past and joined a line-up of expensive cars in the street. At first I didn’t realize what everyone was running toward – watching kids race from the square down the street I thought there might be some emergency, and it gave me a bit of a flash to 1976, kids running to escape police fire. But they were running toward something, chasing a symbol of material success. Young people pushed each other aside in their rush to posed for photos with cars, the Lamborghini owner revved his engine till it overheated, and we chatted with people in the street.
As the sun started to set we drove up Vilakazi Street. Used to be, this was where you came to visit Mandela’s house, the home where Winnie Madikezela-Mandela lived under a banning order and police surveillance for years. I remember, visiting in the late 1990s, a solemn calm— a reverent hush as the elderly caretaker took our R5 and ushered us inside.
Today the little house on the corner is barely visible behind a large fence (the bars supposedly represent prison bars), and virtually missable for all the hype in the adjacent street. Restaurants and shops spill out onto the sidewalks, bands and musicians competing for tourists’ and locals’ attention. As we slowly threaded our way up the street, young boys pressed up against the hood of the car and performed impressive dance moves against the doors. Yet another face of Youth Day 2018.
I’d heard that adults wear their old school uniforms in the streets on youth day, but saw only a few people in school ties and shirts. I’ve also heard criticism that some adults see the day as a chance to drink and carry on in public wearing those uniforms. As the sun began to drop, the Saturday partying in Vilikazi Street began to heat up.
Our last stop was Wandie’s Place. Before Wandie’s became a restaurant serving traditional African food and a stop on every 1990s township tour, it was a shebeen (illegal pub) operating out of an ordinary house in Dube. I have good memories of meals there with friends from the US and the YWS participants. It was Dube residents (and YWS participants) Thabo and Nthuthuko who originally–proudly–steered me to Wandie’s in 1998. It was an establishment for Sowetans to boast about, and one right in their neighborhood.
Today, twenty years later, Wandie’s is subdued and a little hard to find. The lettering is completely worn off the sign. Eating here is now by reservation only. A few tables are occupied inside, where it’s cool, dim, and quiet. Wandie himself seems not to have aged, and I’m happy to be able to tell him we have good memories from past visits.
But Wandie has clearly been outdone by the competition in nearby Vilakazi Street. When I recently suggested we hold our YWS reunion at Wandie’s, Thabo and Nthuthoko protested vociferously– it’s gone downhill, why not look at a place in Vilakazi Street...
Stumbling into the Johannesburg airport nearly two months ago, I noticed huge billboards promoting tourism in Soweto: images of smiling white people pointing cameras in the direction of smiling black people sitting in a café, pirhouetting in the street. Smiling white people riding bicycles down a township street. I took pictures of those pictures, an act that struck me as surreal, moreso when the little label “Soweto tourism” in the lower-right, inconspicuous in white lettering, didn’t come out in my photo, like a ghost. Where is this? I wondered, in my jet-lagged stupor.
Now I get it: those were pictures of Vilakazi Street.
Wandie is a hold-out from bygone days. He was in the vanguard of Soweto entrepreneurs, a pioneer before Vilakazi Street became a phenomenon, visionary in welcoming tourists to Soweto. Nonetheless, I realize that need to shift my perceptions: I may see Vilakazi Street as Disney-esque and Wandie’s in a sentimental light, but for Thabo and Nthuthuko, Vilakazi Street represents tangible progress—something to be proud about in Soweto today.
But I don’t want the glitz of Vilikazi Street to gloss over this: Youth in Soweto today are still part of the national statistics. Turn the corner, go a few blocks, and that 50+% is still right there. This is part of my personal challenge—actually, my obligation as a longtime visitor to the townships—to integrate these disparate realities into my imagination, and to share them with others.
Lungile and I wrapped up our video with Wandie’s glowing in the sunset behind us. “It was a nice day,” we agreed. “We didn't plan it, and we had a good time.”
Here’s to spontaneity, shifting perceptions, and all the “old youth” amongst us! (Please enjoy our video.)