This a true story based on the lives of two conflicted strangers.
Forty-four years ago, South Africa had experienced one of the biggest student protests where a sea of young black students took to the streets of the South Western Township affectionately known as Soweto on the 16th of June 1976 to protest the racism and inadequacy of Bantu education to be taught in their mother tongue (native languages, for example; isiZulu, isiXhosa, Sesotho, Tshivenda, etc) and not in a language that was foreign to these students, which claimed the lives of so many students, the class of 1976.
That time and moment in South Africa's history has come to symbolise the crucial role that young black people have played and can play in shaping South Africa's political discourse. It remains a pivatol turning point for student activists today.The Soweto uprisings of June 16, 1976 were framed around a powerful issue of immediate significance to the students: the imposing of Afrikaans as a mandatory teaching medium in black classrooms, whose curriculum was dictated by the then Department of Bantu Education.
Tens of thousands of students took the streets of Soweto filled with the placards written with the words "To Hell With Afrikaans" and "John Vorster and Jimmy Kurger are rubbish" (then prime ministers) with statements of anger dissatisfaction, and frustration as they were not taken seriously by the then Apartheid government of 1948.
Five years ago, South Africans commemorated the 39th anniversary of the June 16th 1976, Soweto uprisings, not caring about knowing that they would witness yet another uprising from students, reminiscent of the June 16, Soweto uprisings later that year. It was business as usual in the months leading up to the much anticipated student protest, children went to school while parents went work and university students attended lectures just like they did for the past months, leading up to that fateful morning of the 12th of October 2015, clear blue skies with a scorching hot sun shining on of the iconic buildings at the University of Witswatersrand, the Great Hall, where tens of thousands of students had met with various student activists to be briefed about the protest.
Two days later, on the 14th of October, a new uprising was born at the University of Witswatersrand with students rallied up to march the Union Buildings and Parliament with key student activists at the forefront. A year later the #FEESMUSTFALL student-led protest intensified, law enforcement became militant and used extreme force and measures to disperse the students and resulted in numerous key student activists being arrested, some well known student activists and some of student activists not really known spent a week or so in jail, others served their time and placed under the house arrest and others were sentenced to five years with a three year suspension being accused of having set alight a police vehicle during the 2016 FeesMustFall Protests.
A year later, one of key FeesMustFall student activists got arrested at his family home in front of his family, he was sentenced and taken to Sun City Correctional Services Prison where he had spent some time before being drafted to Leeuwkop Correctional Services Prison where he served the rest of his sentence. Two years later, on the 24th of December 2019, he was released on parole as he was given a remission by the current president of South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Earlier this year, three days before my birthday I went to my appointment that booked with a psychiatrist as I had been suffering depression since losing a childhood friend to an accident in 2009 along with other family members, two days later of my appointment, on the eve of my birthday, 24th February, I had logged in to my Facebook account to check your people what were up to, as I scrolling through my newsfeed I went to through my friend suggestionsto see if there was any interesting friend suggestions as I had been getting alot of friend suggestions the previous year, I must say most of those friend suggestions were guys, some who had profile pictures of themselves shirtless, but I was just not interested at all, then this friend suggestion appeared with the name Kanya Tandile Cekeshe on my feed, I thought I was going to send a friend request to him, but I did not as I was skeptical about sending him a friend request, I don't know how many times a day I checked his Facebook profile to make sure it was legit, and I had eventually built up the courage to click on the request button.
When I saw that he had accepted my request, I honestly did not know how I felt, my heart beating fast than usual, and I had butterflies in my stomach when I saw that he had accepted my friend request, I was overwhelmed with emotions and over the moon.
Life has not been easy to for the both of us as I had been suffering from depression and posttraumatic stress since 2009, without my parents knowing that I was suffering from depression.
At the moment we are taking it slow and easy, getting to know each other even more and not rush into things as we both on the journey of re-alignment, rediscovery, re-evaluation, and renewal letting of our me's our past selves so our present selves can be free from the chains of the past. We are determined to be there for each other through thick and thin, better for worse to become better people than we were before and help each other to become better versions of ourselves.
© Imani Dlamini
(please respect me by not stalking the characters of the story).