Good Morning Campers

That Other Column 68
Martin Hatchuel

Hope June 16

Young people’re fun. Young people have far too much energy for my own good, young people are far too progressed, far too arrogant, far too immortal, far too infallible and far too all-knowing.

You gotta love ‘em. Because it’s thanks to them that this country is where it is today.

I’ve said it before and I won’t be able to say it for much longer: I’m forty six. And a half. And Like most people of my generation, I can remember exactly where I was on June 16, 1976 when the first news of the Soweto uprising started to filter into our spoiled, northern suburbs Jo’burg lives. I was in the art class at my terribly, terribly self-important, ego-inflated all-boys sports academy (‘the art class’ being a euphemism for ‘the-guys-who-can’t-make-it-anywhere-else,’ although we did count a sprinter or two and, I think, a first team hockey reserve amongst our forlorn and eccentric number). And I was sitting, as usual, with my bum on the desk and my feet on the chair, because, while it drove other teachers into conniptions, that kind of outlandish rebellion was fine in Miss Martin’s presence and we all need a place where we can rebel.

And besides, she was gorgeous: and if I sat on my seat like everyone else, would she notice me? I mean, truly notice me?

I remember the day as being clear and cold, and that I had on my dull, dusty blazer over a scratchy, dusty grey jersey. We had a double period - before and after lunch - and Miss Martin must have heard about the ‘unrest’ (talk about euphemisms!) in the staff room during the break because, instead of allowing us to continue drawing when class resumed, she made us listen to her tinny portable radio and to the plummy, self-satisfied drone which newscasters adopted in those controlled and far-off days.

And I don’t suppose Miss Martin was more than six or seven years older than the oldest boy in the room (it was our matric year - and, for some of us, our second and third matric year), but she must have been a lot wiser, because she predicted, when the newscast was over, that South Africa would never be the same.

We hadn’t a clue what she was talking about - because it was the first time most of us came to realise that there were kids out there who were deeply dissatisfied with the education system (we hated it, of course, but thought it “rather good”).

And of course she was right, thank goodness - and thanks to the youth. Some of the youth, at least.

I don’t suppose any of us dreamed, then, that there’d be anything to celebrate come June 16, 2005, but in truth there is much to celebrate - although for me, at least, this year’s Youth Day was a demonstration of how far we’ve come and, in some ways, a sad reminder of how little we’ve actually progressed.

I marked the day by attending the festival at the Rheenendal Primary School. They’d set up a tent and they had bands and performers and there were speeches and a couple of friendly blokes walked around handing out free oranges to anyone who’d have them - and I had them (groaningly far too many of them). The ground was carpeted with peels and it was muddy and the air was just as cold as I remember it all those years ago. There were some stalls (I bought a yellow-and-black-and-green bead necklace) and some food stands - but I suspect that most people didn’t have much money, because nobody seemed to be doing much business. And it was loud and it was brash and it was safe and it was unthreatening and it was ... coloured. And a little black.

But it was very, very, un-white.

There was me and the photographer Bryan van Wyk and his girlfriend Ansa. And before I arrived, I believe the mayor made an appearance and she’s white. And Jim Morel had been there, too, the manager of one of the bands which performed. And he’s white. But that, I believe, was it as far as white people were concerned.

White okes didn’t have much to celebrate, it seemed.

I spoke to some of the people there: to Michael Olivier, who organised the event with Peggy Oelf and Linda Michels, and to the chairman of the local branch of the ANC, Lawrence Jule, and to Lwaype Sam and they all said the same thing. The people need land. The people need housing. The people need training and education. But above all, we need to work for unity in South Africa; we need to go beyond race; we need become one community (community in the old-fashioned sense of the word: not as it’s used today. Not “community” as a politically correct euphemism for “non-European township”).

But I’d driven through Knysna’s upper-crust, mostly-white suburbs that morning, and I couldn’t help comparing them with the poverty of that rural village.

And I couldn’t help wondering what the people of Rheenendal had to celebrate.

Hope, I suppose. Hope that things will improve, eventually. And hope is a lot more - in fact it’s everything more - than any of us had on June 16, 1976.

martin@barefootclients.co.za