A walk of solidarity

The event also deepened a spirit of intergenerational solidarity through an encounter that brought together two generations whose lives were shaped by some of the darkest chapters of apartheid.

Facilitated by UN Human Rights, survivors of the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 met and walked alongside survivors of the Soweto Uprising of 1976. Together, they embodied a continuous human rights journey stretching across decades of resistance and sacrifice.

Sharpeville exposed to the world the brutality of a system built on racial oppression, while Soweto demonstrated the determination of South Africa’s youth to challenge and ultimately dismantle that system. This meeting also illustrated a truth that the struggle for human dignity did not begin with one generation and it certainly does not end with another. Their presence served as a living reminder that memory, when shared across generations, becomes a force for justice, accountability and hope. 

“Gathering stones to build the world we want”

There are some people whose lives become a bridge between history and conscience. Seth Mazibuko is one of them. He was the youngest member of the students’ committee that led the peaceful protest in Soweto.

Abigail Noko, OHCHR Regional Representative for Southern Africa met Seth Mazibuko during a recent visit to the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum in Soweto.

“To speak with him is to encounter not only a survivor of one of South Africa’s defining moments but a man who has spent decades insisting that memory must do more than lament,” Noko said. “It must provide a foundation on which to build and move us to act.”

This year marks 50 years since the June 16^th Soweto Uprising. On this day, hundreds of schoolchildren rose in protest against an unjust and dehumanising apartheid system in South Africa. They marched peacefully against the compulsory use of Afrikaans as a language of instruction that the Bantu Education system imposed on black learners. Police responded with tear gas and live ammunition. Many paid with their lives.

This year also marks 30 years since the adoption of the Constitution, a document born from sacrifice, struggle and a belief in human dignity.

To commemorate this milestone, the UN Human Rights Office in Southern Africa and SABC News launched a #30for30 campaign marking 30 years of South Africa's Constitution and spotlighting the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Recognizing that both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and South Africa’s Constitution were adopted on 10 December and have served as beacon of hope, human rights and constitutional democracy.

Few people embody the connection between those two milestones more profoundly than Seth Mazibuko who’s life bridges the struggle for freedom and the pursuit for justice as espoused to in universal human rights values.

His life reminds us that the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights did not emerge in isolation, they were forged through the courage of ordinary people who dared to imagine something different.

Mazibuko told his own story with unforgettable symbolism. He said he wants to be remembered as a man who lived in “three stone ages.”

The first was on 16 June 1976, when he was throwing stones against apartheid police. The second was on Robben Island, where imprisonment meant breaking stones in the quarry. The third, and current age is what he calls his “stone gathering age”. This is the time to gather stones to build a better South Africa, a better world and a future rooted in human rights. The stones as a metaphor powerfully capture both the violence of South Africa’s past and the moral responsibility of its present.

As Noko and Mazibuko’s discussion turned to that fateful day, for Mazibuko June 16 is not an anniversary that comes and goes. It is an experience that has never left him.

He spoke of the evening of that day, when he went to what is now the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital expecting to find injured schoolchildren in wards, only to find them in the mortuary. Their black-and-white school uniforms were stained with blood. He recalled the children were no longer being called by their names but by numbers.

Mazibuko spoke of June 16 not only as a tragedy but as a turning point in the making of democratic South Africa. His words were stark and powerful. “June 16”, he said, was “a book versus a bullet.” He said that the blood of those children helped secure the ballot. Freedom came at an unbearable cost.

But if Mazibuko carries the burden of memory, he also carries the authority of lived truth. He was 15 years-and-one-day old when June 16 changed his life forever.

“I was curious about what gave him the courage to rise at a tender age. His answer is sobering,” Noko said. “Fighting for human rights, he said, “was not a choice. It was the unavoidable response of children growing up inside a brutal system that denied their humanity.”

As they walked through the museum, he shared the memory of a family of 13 living in a two-room house in Orlando East. He spoke of overcrowding, hunger, indignity and the daily architecture of apartheid. He spoke of Black children being treated as though their rights, childhoods and futures did not matter. These were assaults on ordinary lives.

Mazibuko’s story is also one of endurance. He was arrested at 16 and placed in solitary confinement. This experience was designed to humiliate and break young bodies and minds.

In one of the most haunting moments of their conversation, he recalled how in solitary confinement, he would invite ants to share spilled coffee on the floor and watch them to make the days pass. Even flies became company. It is an image almost too painful to hold, a child prisoner starved of human contact that insects became companions.

On Robben Island, he encountered what he called “the greatest brains, the greatest leaders.” Leaders who told him and others of his generation, again and again, “Study, study, study. We’ve got a country to run.” Out of prison came education. He completed his schooling behind bars, pursued education and returned to serve his community, including as a school principal. 

Today, as South Africa reflects on 30 years of constitutional democracy, Mazibuko’s life invites both pride and discomfort. Pride, because the Constitution stands as one of the most visionary human rights documents in the world. Discomfort, because the daily realities of many young South Africans still echo the inequalities that June 16 rose against. Poverty, exclusion, unemployment, educational disparity, gender-based violence and the fraying of social trust continue to threaten the promise of freedom and social justice.

This is why Mazibuko’s metaphor of “gathering stones” feels so urgent. The task is to construct a country envisioned in the Constitution. It is to gather the stones of memory, justice, equality, education, accountability and solidarity, and build a society that prospers.

Noko added, June 16 must be much more than commemoration. It must be honoured through youth policy and opportunity, through access to education and through leaders who understand that human rights are not promises made on paper. They find meaning in lived experiences.

“My encounter with Mazibuko stopped me in my tracks. It was deeply moving but more than that, it revealed something profound about his contribution to democracy,” Noko said.

Her encounter taught Noko something vital about Mazibuko’s contribution to democracy. She said he did not stop at resistance; he embraced responsibility, lived for humanity and embodies wisdom shaped by struggle.  

“Fifty years on, his voice still carries the authority of someone who has seen what happens when a society denies its children their humanity. His message is simple, but not easy: together we must build the world we want and never allow such injustice to happen again.”