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

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.

After the coups

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

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?