Africa Is a Country

ESPN observes Youth Day

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ESPN observes Youth Day

By
Sean Jacobs

I went to ESPN’s website to check WC scores and was surprised to find two short videos on its soccer homepage commemorating the June 16, 1976 student uprising in Soweto. A day which is now recognized as “Youth Day,”  a national holiday.

Check them out for yourself:

South Africa Celebrates Youth Day

Voices of South Africa: Youth Day

They are not particularly impressive, especially because neither details exactly what happened on June 16, 1976, i.e. what the students were protesting or who Hector Pieterson is. I would say the biggest flaw is that the videos, likely to be watched by many checking scores today, makes it seem as if the struggle is in the past. Former SA footballer, Shaun Bartlett, says it best:

It’s more these days about the memorial, so there are no more protests involved. It’s all about going to church and remembering what happened on that day in a very calm way.

– Allison Swank

Further Reading

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As Hollywood recycles pro-war propaganda for Gen Z, Youssef Chahine’s ‘Djamila, the Algerian’ reminds us that anti-colonial cinema once turned imperial film language against its makers—and still can.

Fictions of freedom

K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’ still haunts Cape Town, a city whose beauty masks its brutal exclusions. Two decades later, in the shadow of Amazon’s new development, its truths are more urgent than ever.

When things fall apart

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The grift tank

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Kagame’s hidden war

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After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahel States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.