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
Its ESPN for crying out loud. The fact that they even mentioned Youth Day is amazing.
yes, I found it surprising.
But what is the point if they’re not actually saying anything about Youth Day? I didn’t even think it was worth the production costs.
Since “Content [is] not available in [my] area” I’ll just run with the descriptions.
Have to say though, “remembering in a very calm way” divoreced from the context of ongoing struggle isn’t really at odds with prevalent approach in South Africa.
The struggle may be ongoing, but its de facto decoupling from Youth Day doesn’t seem to be a product of ESPN’s coverage, which is relatively true to context.
@Jason, you should see the videos. My concerns are that they made it seem that social and economic injustice is a thing of the bygone past in SA. Secondly, they didn’t say a damn thing about what Youth Day is. I’m not even sure they mentioned who, or how many people were killed or why. Their content is reduced to a montage of children singing and older folks talking about “remembering” the struggle. I found this problematic for sports fans who may not know the first thing about SA. And they certainly won’t know having watched these pointless pieces.
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