15/06/2026
NEHAWU STATEMENT ON THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF JUNE 16
Monday June 15, 2026
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] joins millions of South Africans in commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the SOWETO Uprising of 1976.
In commemorating this historic day, NEHAWU salutes the generation of 1976 for their unwavering commitment to the liberation of their country. We pay homage to the gallant martyrs of our national struggle for liberation, who selflessly sacrificed their lives for a democratic South Africa.
In paying homage to the students’ uprising that erupted in SOWETO and spread to other parts of the country from the 16th June 1976 onwards, we should not consider that tragic historical moment in isolation. A meaningful understanding of June 16 is not one that is narrowly focused on a specific day in that year’s calendar, as it was part of the broader reawakening of the masses of our people and growing defiant consciousness amongst the broader black masses after more than a decade of sustained draconian repression during the 1960s.
Indeed, we must honour this day in its proper historical context of the trajectory of our national liberation struggle, in which the revolts of the 1970s and 1980s were preceded by the lull and repression of the 1960s, at the time when the Afrikaner regime was gearing itself to complete its project of total domination and replacement of the historical English hegemony. During the crushing repression of the 1960s, the economy was rapidly industrialising which turbo-charged the rise of Afrikaner capital. Whereas towards the end of the 1970s and during the 1980s, the Apartheid regime ran into a decade-long period of stagnation which was worsened by the international intensification of sanctions.
So contextually, even those gallant students who reignited the internal flames of the struggle through their SOWETO Student Representative Council, led by their brave young leaders such as Tsietsi Mashinini, Seth Mazibuko, Murphy Morobe, Kgotso Seatlholo and Sechaba Montsitsi, rose up to resist the imposition of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction, without knowing that their actions were actually launching a new phase of the downward and crumbling trajectory of settler-colonialism on the one hand and the intensification of the trajectory of the national liberation struggle, on the other hand.
The Afrikaners had already politically dislodged the English and had made advances in claiming their stake within the commanding heights of South African capitalism through state-led interventions, including the sustained socioeconomic programmes to uplift poor Afrikaners on the back of the expansive forceful seizure of land in the countryside and forceful removals and displacements in urban areas.
This includes the semi-slavery conditions of the super-exploitation of black workers especially on the farms, and the technical modernisation of their own language and building their own universities. Therefore, the imposition of Afrikaans intended as the exclusive medium of instruction in education was part of a larger project of extending it to the rest of the society or in other walks of life. Thus, it represented the drive to complete the project of asserting Afrikaner hegemony, whereby the oppressed black people would be forced to switch from the English indoctrination as part of their psychological oppression in the process of the consolidation of Colonialism of a Special Type.
So, the blood and lives of over 700 young people who were murdered on that day in 1976 were not in vain, as that marked a downward turning point and a reversal of the Afrikaner project of hegemonizing South African capitalism when the regime withdrew the policy of imposing Afrikaans as the medium of instruction.
The 50th Anniversary occurs against the background of recorded high levels of unemployment, extreme poverty and social inequality. According to Statistics South Africa, youth unemployment for those between the age 15 – 24 stands at 60.9% and for those aged 25-34 is at 40.6%. This is an abnormal situation in a country where the youth constitute the majority of the population. This situation requires more than ever before that young people from all walks of life stand united and fight for their place in society just like the generation of 1976.
The youth should use this day to send an unambiguous message to government and business community that they should create jobs and must be provided with opportunities to meaningfully participate in the economy. The youth must demand concrete interventions geared towards youth development and empowerment through education and training, learnerships and internships and also creating space for youth entrepreneurship. Equally, young people should use youth day to intensify the fight for young people to have access to higher education. Young people must wage a struggle for the government to fully implement without any delay free tertiary education.
Lastly, this 50th Anniversary should be used to concretely provide solutions that will help address the challenges of youth unemployment, poverty, hunger and other problems that confronting young people in the country.
END
Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat.
