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Judi Lynn

(160,219 posts)
Thu Jun 16, 2016, 02:02 AM Jun 2016

40 years after students sparked apartheid's end, a new anger

Source: Associated Press

40 years after students sparked apartheid's end, a new anger

Cara Anna, Associated Press

Updated 2:13 pm, Wednesday, June 15, 2016

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The day was a key moment in the long campaign to end South Africa's harsh apartheid system of white-minority rule. Forty years ago, black students in Johannesburg's Soweto township marched in protest and some were gunned down by police, appalling the world.

South Africa has changed dramatically since June 16, 1976 , when the high school students defied being forced to study in Afrikaans, the language of their white rulers, and hundreds were killed as the protests spread across the country. In 1990, Nelson Mandela was freed from prison, later winning the Nobel Peace Prize and becoming the country's first black president. In 1994, blacks got the right to vote. "Whites only" barriers fell.

But a new wave of student protests, over fees charged for higher education, show the country remains starkly divided between the haves and have-nots. Although living conditions have improved, many blacks are still in poor neighborhoods without electricity or running water in their homes. Meanwhile, concerns are growing that a new black elite is plundering the country's wealth.

"What has changed? Nothing has changed," said Seth Mazibuko, one of the organizers of the 1976 Soweto protest who is today the head of the June 16 Youth Development Foundation. "When we were fighting, we were saying doors must be opened to all. Now these doors, when they open, they're closed for those who do not have money."

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/40-years-after-students-sparked-apartheid-s-end-8194767.php

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40 years after students sparked apartheid's end, a new anger (Original Post) Judi Lynn Jun 2016 OP
South Africa seems to be off everyone's radar oberliner Jun 2016 #1
True here, true in South Africa angrychair Jun 2016 #2
The South African elites knew enough to contain it to "race" equality as the only issue LiberalLovinLug Jun 2016 #3
 

oberliner

(58,724 posts)
1. South Africa seems to be off everyone's radar
Thu Jun 16, 2016, 02:34 AM
Jun 2016

It might be a good idea for folks to take a look at the current situation there.

Thanks for posting.

angrychair

(8,594 posts)
2. True here, true in South Africa
Thu Jun 16, 2016, 09:46 AM
Jun 2016

True everywhere:

It's easy to talk about the virtues of compromise when you are not the one being compromised.

LiberalLovinLug

(14,154 posts)
3. The South African elites knew enough to contain it to "race" equality as the only issue
Thu Jun 16, 2016, 03:14 PM
Jun 2016

If it were rather focused on financial equality it would have effected more change.

Something Bernie was criticized for. Not limiting himself to the tunnelvision of only addressing BLM and AA bandaid solutions. He dared to suggest that helping ALL disadvantaged people, no matter what race or sex, helps minorities like AA more, in the long run, if it is a large institutionalized change, than narrow focused "solutions" for one set of the population, that could be snuffed out much easier by some politician in the future. For that he was smeared.

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