They were young; they were black and intelligently radical. The young organised people of ’76 run to the street of Soweto in June 16 with a mission at heart and a vision of a clear South African education system in mind. They made their statement, revolutionised and created history. Every year we stand still in remembrance of this heroic action our fellow young soldiers endured. They aggressively paved and painted red the road to freedom for us, Mandela walked on it fist in the air and gave us the independence. One thing in common here between us and ’76 generation is the aggressiveness, the drive, passion, the radicalism of young blood, the death drive. We are the generation that can take up arms and fight for our leaders; we are the kidz that get on skateboards and paint walls; the brothers and sisters who eat sushi on top of naked bodies, like the Outlawz we rebel against the system that we don’t understand.
We are the unpredictable social-network junkies, risk taking ambitious youth of 2011 but our future looks bleak, I’m saying bleak subjectively looking @ our present state of affairs, I’m not prophesying; I’m just saying, the rising in stats of HIV/AIDS infections amongst the youth, according to information released by South Africa Institute of Race Relation there is an increasing number of unemployment between the age of 15 and 25, teen pregnancy, the level of our education and our so-called society role model, the likes of Mandla Lamba and khanyi Mbayu. Maybe is only the worry of the elders, who’ll always say ‘eish, abatwana ba la malanga’. Where is our inspiration? Where is our death drive directed to? There’s no question about the energy we exude, we have so much energy we can light up one Eskom power station for a day, that’s how much power we have. An ANCYL conference is an epitome of the energized generation that we are. We engage our leaders, take on technology, accessorize and flirt with every modern fashion trend and infiltrate every social network system like we are promised a seat in paradise. I am writing with mixed emotions here, with so much vigour, a nation of 46 million in population nearly quarter n half of it being the youth, we fail to mobilise and come against piracy so our artist can sell 50000 units? How are we dealing with the reality of HIV and Aids? The government and the ruling party put it in simpler language ‘this is not a fight of one man, but it is everyone’s fight’. Are we weary to fight or we just don’t give a crap. In this era where everyone wants to be a tenderpreneur, we still battle to acquire comforting results when it comes to Maths and Science. Have we lost the objectives of the freedom fighters, the dreams and ambitions of Steve Biko, Chris Hani and Solomon Mahlangu?
The truth is, Mzansi’s troopers are us (youth) and we are sitting in the middle of the sea with a sense of direction but no compass or a captain. We need to sail our ship to the right direction and see in us the heroes and legends of the 20th century, lets hustle the hustle like the boys and girls our age; Proverb, Slikour, Noni Gaza, Kabelo of TKzee, Goodenough Mashego, Teargas, Kgebetli Moeli, Kgoshi Tshwarelo esengMogakane, Zizo Beda, Khensani Nkosi of Stone Cherrie, Katsuko, Siyabonga Ngwekazi of Ama kip kip, Monice of Monice entertainment... I can go on and on. This route is not to the swift my young friends but time and chance is given to us. What do we do with the freedom we have in our hands? Luv ur Hood and recognize is al gud
