The 'Day of the African Child', celebrated early this week in recognition of the historic 1976 black student resistance against education in Afrikaans and English in the institutions set aside for 'bantu' schooling in South Africa, should remind African leaders and civil society about their obligations to the youth in the coming years. The South African student resistance was inspired by:
.The urgency of reaffirmation of the values of the liberation movement that started with Khoisan resistance to Dutch domination in the Cape Province dated 1642, culminating in majority rule and democracy in South Africa in 1994;
. Development of a strategy for the mobilisation of 'the Black masses' based on the need for recognition of the humanity of the oppressed and the beauty they possessed, if for no other reason than the fact that they were also God's good people;
.The establishment of organised African resistance, recognised mainly through the efforts of the African National Congress founded in 1912, to institutionalised racism called apartheid in South Africa and the neighbouring European colonies; and
.Armed struggle against colonialism in the affected southern African countries.
