Swazi Observer

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JUNE 16 CELEBRATION SHADOWED BY FULL BLOWN ECONOMIC CRISIS!

By Macford Sibandze | 2019-06-19

I am writing this article on a cool Sunday morning of June 16, 2019; coincidentally it’s Father’s day.

I am wrestling with the idea of physically going to church (to celebrate both days) and listening to the sermons on the radio! As fate would have it I chose the latter!

On this very day, 43 years ago, in 1976, many young black South Africans paid the ultimate prize for freedom with their blood! (Estimated at 700 deaths)

In a supposedly low key, non-violent strike against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction; the ferocious, unhappy apartheid regime opened fire; killing defenceless children as young as 12; who posed no security threat to life and property!

43 years later, 25 of which is a free South Africa; those whose hands are dipped in blood of the innocent; sit side by side with victims sipping champagne and expensive whisky in the table of brotherhood!

EATING TIME!!!!

Since 2008, indicators show a gloomy 10-year period of looting (Wasted Years) which saw the country downgraded a number of times! Greed saw a whole country sold to lowest Indian bidders, cronies, bootlickers, family and friends who turned the prestigious state into a Banana Republic!

Their blind excuse is that they fought for the country; were jailed, tortured and persecuted thus they have a VVIP diplomatic passport to loot! Chris Hani must be turning in his grave; whose blood was splattered on the floor on the 10th of April 1993; some 12 months or so before freedom day! What the looters ignore and disregard, is the fact that others died for this freedom; others have mental and physical scars to show for it. Worse; others suffered more than them but have nothing to show 25 years after independence! The eating time era saw the future of young people deferred and amputated! They have nothing to celebrate on June 16 as they stare at faded photographs of Steve Biko and Hector Peterson!

UNEMPLOYMENT

In South Africa and elsewhere in the world, unemployment is now a national emergency! South Africa’s unemployment rate increased by 27.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2019 as announced by StatsSA. The jobless rate at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018 was 27.1 per cent, meaning it has increased by half a percentage point. This shows a 6.2 million unemployed people with a sluggish economic growth leading to a full blown fiscal crisis! The government’s dream of 300 000 jobs a year looks like a pie in the sky as indicators show 237 000 job losses in hardly four months of 2019.

The formal sector bleeds the most and all eyes are on the new president to do blood transfusion to the anaemic patients! He also has to do a heart plant as the population, mostly the youth has lost heart; stealing, killing, raping, intoxicating, etc.

RAMAPHORIA

As Ramaphosa takes over, his huge appetite to impose economic reforms will go under the test as he leads a fragmentally divided party of all times! The division is so glaring and has to be cemented by a tight glue of appeasement as the appointment of ministers seemingly signals!

Ramaphosa should be worried why on the two occasions of his inauguration his predecessor never showed up! It doesn’t get any better than this! But as a Chief Negotiator who cut his teeth in the Negotiated Settlement as a cool head in the early 90s; he has to employ those skills of navigation between stones and soft grounds.

INEQUALITY

South Africa boasts the world’s most inequality with the scale balancing heavy on the blacks as the most poor in comparison to whites!

The Poverty Index shows white South Africans with the lowest levels of poverty! Zooming this to black youths lay bare the dark side of apartheid instutionalised and socially constructed poverty through well knitted programmes! 25 years after independence and 43 years after the June 16 Massacre; these policies are still a gatekeeper to black youth’s access to a better future!

Thus the term ‘youth’ has a black face and unfortunately a male gender! Of course it is an anomaly to see youth at this age, as male black but it has a historical legacy and it’s a debate for another day! But what must be clear is that white youths are still cushioned by apartheid policies as they don’t bear the brunt of the economic slump because the economy is still relatively white!

FEES MUST FALL!

FeesMustFall is the new struggle! And these are black youths shouting on top of their voices! While their fathers shook up the hegemonic structure of Afrikaans in the mid 70s, their fight is against a full blown fiscal crisis, unemployment, corruption, retrenchments, land expropriation, homelessness, sluggish economy, cost of living, etc.

This youth will not rest until their voices are heard! That’s why many of them have found home in the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party because it resonates with them!

This is another youth, at another time in history! You can’t inspire this generation with exiled, MK and jailed Robben Island heroic tales as it has no relevance to them! It becomes worse when they read stories of state capture and corruption by the so called struggle icons! Thus Ramaphosa has a huge task before him; to make June 16 relevant after 43 years! He has to pitch the voice high and read the scroll loud; that EATING TIME IS OVER!

And if EATING TIME IS NOT OVER …ANC WILL BE PUSHED OVER THE EDGE!!!!!

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