Over this weekend the people of our country and the whole world are celebrating one of the most beautiful and glorious chapters of the history of the south african national liberation struggles. We are commemorating the 36th anniversary celebrations of the 1976 June 16 student uprising. It was during this historic day that our heroic june 1976 youth generation triumphed over the forces of apartheid regime when they led the most successful protest march against the imposition of bantu education and also afrikaans as a medium of instruction. 

We take this humbled opportunity to salute the heroism of the historic leadership of the june 16 generation for the pivotal role they played in the struggles against the forces of apartheid colonialism and imperialism and more importantly their fearless determination to occupy the forefront trenches as volunteers of our national liberation struggles.Their indominable contribution to the cause of our struggles for the total emancipation, freedoms and the dignity of our people will forever cherish the memories of our future generations to come.

We celebrate the historic calendar day eighteen years after the demise of the apartheid regime saw the election of our first democratic government under the stewardship of our national liberation movement, the african national congress. The 1994 democratic breakthrough ushered in a qualitative shift from apartheid colonial oppression and exploitation to a new era of democratic dispensation for effective socio economic transformation of all relations of our society.

The pertinent question we need to ask ourselves is whether we are able to seize the prospects presented by the qualitative 1994 democratic breakthrough to nurture the calibre leadership of our young generation capable of taking forward the glorious legacy of the June 16 generation.

Whether we are able to utilize the possibilities created by the new improved conditions as a breeding ground to build a calibre of a young generation capable of traversing and confronting the challenges posed by the centuries old legacy of imperialism and colonialism of a special type. 

The scientific theoretical approach on this complex question will be to move from the basis of understanding the historic character of both the June 16 generation and our generation of youth today and more importantly understanding the prevailing concrete objective realities of the day.

The generation of our young people should comprehend the historical realities that our heroic june 16 generation was a formidable force which was able to conceptualize the dialectical relationships between the tasks facing our National liberation struggles at the time with that of today. In other words they understood that a determination to dismantle the brutal apartheid regime was a necessary precondition to lay a solid foundation for the better life of the future generations. 

The dialectical synthesis was that they could not achieve the ideal dream of building a non racial, non sexist, prosperous and a democratic south Africa under hostile conditions of discriminatory laws perpetuated by racist oppressive apartheid regime. They were equally conscience of the difficult choice that confronting the oppressive instruments of the apartheid machinery was about determining their own destiny.

On the contrary the platoon of our young generation today find itself having to traverse a complex terrain of struggles under much improved conditions produced by the past struggles of our people. The new forms of struggles of confronting the centuries old legacy of apartheid colonialism and imperialism, of combating the pandemic problems of disease, poverty and underdevelopment defined by our democratic conjuncture.

We think it will be in the best interest of our national democratic revolution if our young generation comprehend the complexities presented by the objective concrete realities of the transitional period we face in the manner that we don't erode the the tremendous achievements we have gained in the past few years. It will indeed be at the peril of our revolution if we blame ourselves for the persistent historic social problems we inherited from the legacy of our historical past.

The challenge we face is how our young generation responds to the impact of the contradictions imposed on our people by the aggressive and hostile legacy of apartheid colonialism. They need to prevail above the harsh conditions we face and understand the realities that we are confronting a structural problem of an economy whose absorptive capacity cannot respond to the demands of our people. 

The spate of violent service delivery protests led mostly by our young generation across the rural and urban settlements of our country finds its expression on the level of development and also the theoretical outlook of our society. The emphasis is that we cannot resolve the present contradictions of poverty, disease and unemployment imposed to us in the 1976 way. 

Therefore the degenerating levels of destroying our existing inadequate infrastructure we require to accelerate socio economic transformation of our society during the recent service delivery protests sweeping across our country is an act contrary to the historic mission that inspired our heroic 1976 generation.

Our young generation should not be manipulated by counter revolutionary forces instigating populist activities aimed at derailing our efforts to advance the objectives of our national democratic revolution. They should prepare themselves on how to seize the opportunities of the bulk infrastructural development initiatives presented by our President Jacob Zuma as part of the massive plans by our government to grow our economy.

Justice Phatse Piitso is a former ambassador of South Africa to Cuba and a member of the ANC writing on his personal capacity.

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