Youth Day, Part II

So Youth Day, mentioned in my last post, commemorates something quite serious and quite notable in South Africa's recent history, and I feel like a bit of a cad for spouting off about it last week--if only just a little--before finding out what it was.

It seems that Youth Day commemorates the 1976 Soweto Uprising, and June 16 is the anniversary of the death of hundreds of South Africans, including a 12 year-old-boy named Hector Pieterson. Hector was shot by police when they opened fire on a group of protesting students. They were demonstrating against a new mandate that all school instruction from that day on was supposed to be given in Afrikaans, the language of the architects of apartheid. By one count, 566 people died that day. Many children never went back to a public school after the start of the uprising. Under the apartheid government, the day stood as a symbol of resistance to the brutality of the government, and now it's a day when South Africa seeks to bring attention to the needs of young people.

When I heard that, I immediately shelved my plan to make light of it some more in this space. My planned meditation on how anything called Youth Day might be celebrated in the United States (hint: it involved Botox, liposuction, and hair plugs) will never see the light of day. Neither will the jokes involving Michael Jackson. Now, it all seems so wrong.