Zimbabwean youths must continue to draw lessons from liberation struggle

Tendai Chirau, Correspondent
The revolutionary Zanu-PF Youth League on June 16 joined all progressive children and youths around the world in celebrating the 29th edition of the Day of the African Child (DAC).

All progressive young people must join in honouring and reflecting on this important DAC.

We should not forget, it is on this historic day that we specifically pay homage to the brave and courageous young cadres who were at the forefront of the struggle for the liberation of the last bastion of apartheid rule on the African continent on June 16, 1976.

The Soweto Uprising was a rebellion against the dehumanising, exploitative and racist Bantu education system that sought to subjugate indigenous Africans into perpetual servitude and second-class citizenship.

The uprising significantly marked a crucial stage in the struggle against colonialism and separatist development.

We salute the spirited and heroic African children who stood up against the colonial status quo of a Bantu education system designed to mentally subdue black communities and perpetuate apartheid and imperialism.

This Bantu education system sought to erode the right of the indigenes to self-determination by reducing them to a subalternate status.

Such a status would see them become perpetual and involuntary victims of the apartheid colonial system.

The African children of 1976 should continuously be celebrated and emulated as important symbols of the right to self-determination and human dignity as evidenced by the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007.

African youths, together with their progressive counterparts from across the globe, duly contributed towards the ratification of a universal framework for efforts to advance indigenous peoples’ rights showing that the flame for youth activism continues to burn even after 1976.

The Soweto Uprising proved that the apartheid policy to impose Afrikaans as a language of instruction in 1974 was not only a disastrous policy decision, but that all people have a right to their language and culture.

DAC thus serves to remind all of us that we must do all we can to protect and promote indigenous languages as part of our national language policies in order to build a generation of adequately conscious Pan African youths mentally emancipated to defend the continent as the land of freedom, peace and progress.

While the Soweto Uprising took centre stage on June 16, 1976 in South Africa; in Zimbabwe, the struggle against British colonialism was also gathering momentum.

The liberation struggle, previously fought largely from Zambia, had seen a new battle front being opened up in Mozambique in January 1976.

The carnage from the Soweto uprising must forever remind all of us that independence was not served on a silver platter, but rather is a product of an arduous and painful struggle dating back to the First Umvukela/Chimurenga of the 1890s.

As Zanu-PF youth, we continue to draw important lessons on the critical role of the youths in the struggle for Africa’s socio-economic and political liberation from the Soweto Uprising.

It is the responsibility of the current generation of young Africans to consolidate the gains of the Soweto Uprising and not only defend the continent, but advance it.

The African Union (AU) critically continues to acknowledge that African children and youth are at the very heart of Africa’s development agenda.

The development outcomes of Africa’s young people have a momentous and permanent effect on the continent’s trajectory.

The AU theme for the 2020 commemoration of DAC is “Access to Child-Friendly Justice in Africa.”

The theme resonates well in Zimbabwe, which created Victim and Child Friendly Courts (VFUs) in 1997 as part of reforms made by the then Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, now President, Cde Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa.

We encourage the various law enforcement authorities to continue to do more to fight the various crimes against children.

These crimes include rape and child marriages in the face of dwindled financial and human resources on account of the evil and imperialist economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the West.

We applaud on this day efforts by the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to harmonise our marriage laws to outlaw child marriages, as well as the inimitable work being done by the First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa to fight for the rights of children and end child marriages.

Going forward, the onus is on the current generation of Zimbabwean children and youths to recalibrate their minds and step forward in creating and sustaining a heritage that will help us to drive the economy forward in line with the able, focussed and progressive vision of President Mnangagwa.

We must never forget that the main beneficiaries of Vision 2030 are today’s children.

The onus is on all Zimbabweans to make Vision 2030 a reality.

Success requires focus as well as resilience, and we must never waver in the face of local and foreign retrogressive forces who are desperate to reverse the gains of our independence.

From June 16, 1976 to eternity, the journey towards total African emancipation continues.

Viva African children. Viva African youths. Viva African freedom.