Spiritual Vitamins

Remember Soweto 16 June 1974

By Rev. Dr. Mankekolo Mahlangu-Ngcobo

The highest sacrifice one can give to a national cause for justice, liberation, and freedom is not only imprisonment or exile. It is also losing your life for the cause.  

June 16, 1976 is a day I will never forget. In my township, Soweto, South Africa, students protested against the imposition of the oppressor's language—Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools. 

The protest was met with the tear gases and bullets of the South African military regime. Many students were killed, arrested and fled into exile. The 12year old Hector Peterson was the first to be killed. 

Tsietsi Mashinini (died in exile in Liberia), Kgotso Seathlolo (died early this year in South Africa) and Sibongile Mthembu-Mkhabela (now in South Africa)  led the students.

I was the secretary of the Student Representative Council at the University of the North. We joined the protest and we missed the bullets but some of the students in our crowd were killed.  We smelt the teargas; we saw the blood flowing to the ground.

We prayed for their survival but God took them.

When we see a new South Africa, we must remember the highest sacrifice of the youth of Soweto and other areas in South Africa.  May God continue to heal their families and us.     

"Greater love has no one than these, that he lay down his/her life for  his/her friends" John 15:13   

Keep you JOY.  Pray for PEACE.  Stay BLESSED.   

Servant at Kalafong