JOHANNESBURG (AP) – South African youths recently swept through an intersection in the heart of Soweto township, breaking into immigrant-owned shops and grabbing whatever they could – soda, a loaf of bread, sometimes even the shelves. Nearly 40 years ago, at the same intersection, young blacks marched to protest the white racist rulers of the time, drawing a bloody crackdown that shocked the world.
The recent looting and unrest that hit Soweto and other areas around Johannesburg was not as bloody as the anti-apartheid demonstrations and the ensuing bloodshed in 1976. But it alarmed a nation built on the ideals of racial reconciliation and underscored that, two decades after apartheid was replaced by the promise of a “rainbow nation,” many South Africans remain marginalized by a lack of economic opportunity.
Resentment against foreigners stoked the looting and rioting in late January that killed six people and forced many shopkeepers to flee.
Joyce Piliso-Seroke, 81, was arrested in 1976 for trying to help the marching students, some of whom burned buildings linked to the apartheid state. The anti-government movements that once aired frustrations against white minority rule now control the state but don’t have answers for the younger generation, she said.
“It’s complete silence now in the country,” Piliso-Seroke said, referring to the lack of effective prescriptions for fixing education and providing employment.