If there’s to be any proving of our Skhaftin, it must be by revolutionary means.

Walter Rodney

It is rumoured that on the day he died, Karl Marx reported seeing a “presence”. When asked what this “presence” looked like, he replied, with all the energy he could muster: “It looks like a smiling socialist from Southern Africa. P…”

Those around him were confused at this Marxian rosebud. They didn’t know whether he wanted to say “Pan-African” or “Phethani”. Whether or not they could pronounce the latter was between them and their tongues.

However, after a search through the history of time, The Blue Skhaftin found the smiling socialist; a Pan-African historian from Matangari — a village in Limpopo that manifested musical legends such as Dan Tshanda — and his name is … Phethani Madzivhandila.

Madzivhandila joins us in the skhaftin to give us his reflections on the meaning and legacy of Youth Day.

Walter Rodney

Do you remember the first time you commemorated youth day? What did it mean to you that first time and what does it mean to you now?

I do not remember precisely. It has always been just a day that I heard about in the peripheries … there in the villages. Unlike in big cities and other provinces, in rural areas we don’t have the culture or tradition of commemorating it that way. In the sense of wearing uniforms, etc. We don’t have monuments commemorating it in Venda. So, it was something we always heard about from elders — those who were living in Gauteng at the time. They would tell us stories about it and we’d take it from there. From a personal point of view, as someone interested in history, I have always read about it in books and watched programs about it on TV. So, I kind of had an idea that it was about students.

Do you think the legacy of the students who protested in ’76 is well preserved in the psyche of black South Africans?

No, not at all. Like many form of black resistance and history in this country, it has been terribly preserved; reduced to just an uprising of students who didn’t want to go to school. It is not engaged as a political moment of resistance, and it’s not linked to the broader struggle of the African people in this country.

The students weren’t just protesting because they were youth and rebellious, but it was a resistance of black people as a whole against our oppression. Until the legacy is interpreted in that manner, it is nothing other than just one of those events we look back into without engaging them from a political perspective.

Do you think young South Africans are better off today than they were 44 years ago, considering the material conditions of black people post-apartheid?

Like ALL south Africans the material conditions of the youth of ’76 and the youth of 2020 remain the same. The reason being that we haven’t defeated the dominant means of production of capitalism, we still haven’t achieved that. We haven’t achieved free education and we haven’t achieved a decolonised education for example.

The youth of FMF of 2015 were fighting the same struggle fought in ’76. So nothing has really changed — we are still in the same struggle just different times. The majority of the youth still find themselves in the periphery of the economy, and only a few of those in the middle class post ’94 find themselves having better situations at least.

As somebody who is vocal about class and racial disparities what are some of the parallels you draw between the struggles of students then and now?

It was easy during apartheid to mobilise along racial lines as the enemy was the white apartheid government. We all united with the same political objective of our oppression from the white government. Today however it is difficult. I have to navigate across racial and class lines. We are definitely not going to struggle with the black bourgeoise class who have become managers in the interests of the white class. Those are also some of the contradictions we had to deal with during FMF. What do we do to black people who have, since 1994, became sworn enemies of our progress? It is difficult but it has to be confronted. It’s not that during apartheid these contradictions were not there, they were, just not as sharpened as they are today. In a neocolonial time like today, we find that not everything black is progressive and on our side. That is the bitter truth.

The government has failed students, poor students in particular. What do you think it will take to level the playing field for students who can’t afford to further their academic careers and students who have little to no access to education?

The same solution we proposed in 2015 is still the same kind of education we envisage; a socialist education, that is our goal. This levelling of playing fields has been done and it has not worked. Rather, it perpetuates these class divisions even further. Free education for all! That is what we said we want — it’s what we still want. And of course that won’t come out of pronouncement but rather through a struggle. This struggle isn’t isolated from the broader struggles in society that our communities are engaged in. So, to be able to achieve this, we will need everyone to be on board. That is the only way to get there.

Will the ANC administration be able to take any action to turn the tide on inequalities that are manifest in education and broader society?

The real question here is: are they interested? Their actions in the past 26 years prove that they do not care. So, what tide will they turn? None at all. They are a neocolonialist’s mouthpiece and will continue to be that for a longtime. There is nothing revolutionary about them. Unfortunately, they will remain a part of our lives for a very long time.

Some people argue that “26 years is a short time for change to have taken place”. What is your take on this line of thinking?

26 years might be too short of a time to change things which have remained this way for over 300 years. But what we want to see is a little glimpse toward that change. There is nothing to support that these fellows actually think about change at all. That is the crisis. They have proven that they do not have any interest in changing anything at all — even the most basic of things. So there’s is no hope at all.

Given that social distancing is part of daily life now, what will you be doing this June 16?

I plan to spend my day reading and interacting with my comrades on the net about this topic. Social distancing has stopped a lot of things but what can we do? We are in the midst of a global pandemic.

Click on the links to read the previous Legacy on June 16 interviews with Tshepiso Modupe and Linda Masilela.