Latest news with #ObbeyMabena
News24
2 days ago
- Politics
- News24
Struggle veteran Obbey Mabena: ‘Freedom without free education is not what we envisioned'
As the country observes Youth Day, children remain at the forefront of battles that outweigh their young lives. Exiled during apartheid, Mabena says SA is not too poor to provide free education and quality housing. The older generation has a responsibility to educate and equip the youth with the knowledge of SA's history. Struggle veteran Obbey Mabena, who turned 75 recently, joined the ANC in March 1976, three months before the Soweto uprisings. He was immediately tasked with recruiting youngsters into the movement and later travelled to Swaziland to report to party officials that he was ready to mobilise. When the protests broke out on 16 June, he was still in that country, only returning to Soweto on 19 June. 'So, I left again on 20 June 1976. They [the security police] were looking for me because of the role I had played in opposing the introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in black schools. So, I went back to Swaziland and then to Angola and didn't return home for eight years.' On his return, Mabena learnt that his family had been harassed by the apartheid forces for three days. They showed up at their home demanding to know his whereabouts. This meant he was not safe in SA, prompting Mabena to leave a day later. He was subsequently taken to what was dubbed the ANC Quatro, which he described as a prison. There, extreme force and torture were unleashed on him and others – the same treatment they had endured under the apartheid regime. The youth of 1976, whose bravery against armed apartheid police is at the centre of the commemoration of Youth Day annually on 16 June, were essentially children; teenagers who were still in high school. A few months ago, children even younger took to the streets, holding up placards protesting #JusticeForCwecwe. Asked about his sentiments on children fighting battles that adults are more equipped to undertake, he lamented the distortion of the slogan Power to the People. He added that the infiltration of apartheid into black communities left a systemic lapse in society's moral fibre. Youth Day honors the bravery of the youth of 1976 and the profound role they played in the liberation of 🇿🇦South Africa.... Posted by Embassy of Belgium in Pretoria on Saturday, June 15, 2024 Speaking on the education system, Mabena said this was nowhere near the freedom that he and his comrades had envisioned when they embarked on the liberation struggle. He said education was a tool with which they had hoped black people's lives would be changed for the better. If the funds in SA were not being mismanaged, we would be able to afford giving our children and grandchildren free education, which is one of the things we were fighting for. Some countries, which are far poorer than SA, can provide free education. Obbey Mabena 'Even these poor-quality RDP houses – our people deserve better. We are one of the richest countries in Africa, accounting for more than 70% of the world's platinum production. Where does that money go? We can afford to give our people better,' he bemoaned. Supplied Mabena, the father of Duma Collective founder Sibu Mabena, strongly condemned the reference to youngsters as the lost generation. Mabena's sentiment was that apartheid left enduring systemic injustices that have derailed the educating of young people about SA's real history and arming them with the right tools to take the baton from veterans like him. 'Young people can't take over out of the blue. We must teach them about where we come from and what we intended when we started fighting for our country.'
News24
2 days ago
- Politics
- News24
The youth are not lost: The untold truth behind June 16, 1976
Obbey Mabena says today's youth are misjudged; they have been left in the dark by those who survived the struggle. Silence from elders about what happened in exile has left young people without a clear understanding of their inheritance. Youth Day must be about truth-telling, not just remembering the past, but confronting what was never finished. 'We are celebrating the youth that fought for us years ago when we didn't have opportunities to education as South Africans,' says Portia Mokoena, a university student reflecting on the meaning of Youth Day. Someone had to die; blood had to be spilt so that we have what we have today. It's a powerful reminder that for her, 16 June is not just about the past. It is a day that still resonates with the present, a mirror held up to what has changed, and what has not. City Press archives Bongiwe Simelane, another young South African, puts it simply, 'It was never easy. It's still not easy now. And it will never be easy. But if we keep pushing through as a unit, we can change things.' She speaks with clarity and urgency. Despite having some freedoms, she believes young people today are scattered, disillusioned and struggling to unify in the same way the youth of 1976 did. 'They had a clear cause. They stood together. We need that now more than ever.' Then there is the question of relevance. What good is education if it does not translate to employment? Ridwaan Patel asks a pointed question, What will you do by studying HR? Where do you go to work with it? Ridwaan Patel His frustration is sharp. 'Everyone pushes university, but what about artisans? We need plumbers, electricians and builders. Not everyone has to be a doctor or lawyer.' Their comments come at a time when the meaning of Youth Day is once again under scrutiny. Almost 50 years after schoolchildren marched through the streets of Soweto demanding the right to be taught in their own language, many young South Africans feel they are still waiting for the freedom that was promised to them. For Obbey Mabena, one of the young people who went into exile in 1976, the problem is not that today's youth are lost, it is that they have not been told the truth. 'When I left for exile, I left on behalf of our people,' says Mabena. 'That being the case, on our return, it was incumbent on us to go back to the people and explain to them what happened after we had left and how we came to be where we were.' That being the case, on our return, it was incumbent on us to go back to the people and explain to them what happened after we had left and how we came to be where we were. But he says that reckoning never really happened. We are very economical with exactly what happened. When we tell our story, we have to tell it once and for all. It was not all hunky-dory. It was very tough. Without that full account, Mabena argues, it becomes easy to misjudge today's youth. 'You hear irresponsible people saying, 'Ah, the youth of today is useless'. Nothing could be more nonsensical. They are our own offspring. If they are useless, it means we are useless because we failed to make them useful.' Mabena reflects on how deeply the apartheid system sabotaged education, using language not to empower, but to control. The introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction was not the beginning, he says, but part of a broader strategy to deny black children access to the kind of knowledge that builds power. 'Under Bantu Education, even if you got straight A's in every subject, if you failed your mother tongue, you were forced to repeat the year. That's how much emphasis they placed on their system. But at the time, we didn't see it. We thought they were making us stupid on purpose. We didn't appreciate the value of mother tongue instruction because we were brainwashed into thinking that English is dignity.' The picture painted by both the youth and veterans like Mabena is one of broken continuity, a country still caught between memory and progress. Youth Day has become a symbol of victory, but also of unfulfilled promises. Access to quality education, funding, safety and dignity remains out of reach for too many. And yet, the spirit of the '76 generation lingers, not in perfect unity or clarity, but in the small acts of questioning and resistance taking place every day. From Fees Must Fall to campaigns against gender-based violence, unemployment and inequality, South Africa's youth are still fighting. Their weapons are different, such as social media, protest, art and dialogue, but their demands echo the same call for justice. As Mabena puts it, 'We must tell our people what happened. That will help our youth not to be useless because they'll be moving from a very concrete base of what happened.' Youth Day is not about nostalgia. It is a warning and a responsibility. As long as truth remains withheld and dignity delayed, South Africa's young people will continue to ask and act in search of something better.
