Khusta Jack has a message, and he is not softening it. The veteran student activist who lived through the 1976 uprisings is speaking directly to those sitting in power today, telling them plainly that what a generation bled for is being quietly undone.
Jack's warning centers on the gains of the liberation struggle, the rights, freedoms, and democratic promises that young people in 1976 put their bodies on the line to secure. His concern is not abstract. He sees the erosion happening in real time, driven by the very people who inherited the movement's legacy.
For a generation of South Africans who were not yet born when Soweto burned, this is a pointed reminder that freedom was not handed over freely, and that holding onto it requires the same vigilance that won it. The question Jack leaves in the air is whether anyone in power is actually listening.
Originally published by AllAfrica.