ON June 16 1976 black children in Apartheid South Africa protested the use of Afrikaans in African schools and the apartheid regime responded with a massacre of the innocent children.
In 1991 the Organisation of African Unity declared June 16 the Day of the African Child, as a way of commemorating the tragedy as an inspiration to right all the wrongs against the African children.
And, the wrongs are almost innumerable.
Less than two months after the massacre in Soweto, Rhodesian Selous Scouts repeated the cowardly act on refugee black children at Nyadzonia in Mozambique. They massacred over a thousand inmates of the refugee camp, the majority of them children.
A year later on November 23 1977, the same heinous crime was repeated by the same Rhodesian and South African war criminals at Chimoio in Mozambique. Commenting on the heinous crime by white criminals against black children, the late Edison Zvobgo said: “Planes came in the morning and carried out such massacres…dropped paratroopers who then with ground forces ringed these two camps and, as these youngsters started running in all directions, they were bayoneted.
“I will never forget the sight of the little kids at the school, where the bombs were dropped, with their pencils and paper outside, and the little bodies scattered everywhere.
“It was so brutish it was incredible.
“They killed the sick! … Dragging them from ambulances and beheading them. “Can you imagine if 400 children were killed in London or in New York.
“It would be a story never to forget.
“It would be everywhere.
“But … no, … it was not given any publicity at all abroad.
“It was just you know … may be because it was black kids.”
Zvobgo’s observation of the brutal facts surrounding the Chimoio massacre of black children by white Rhodesians is very critical in explaining the easy facility with which the Western champions of children’s rights resolved the heinous Soweto massacre after South Africa’s independence.
Against a historical background in which Israel and the Western world pursued those responsible for the Nazi holocaust right to the gates of hell; and the United States and the European Union were piling charges of human rights violations against Sadam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, the white apartheid war criminals from Rhodesia and South Africa were allowed to get away more than scot-free for killing African children.
In a travesty misnamed ‘Truth and Reconciliation’, the racist thugs were encouraged to own up their participation in the genocide and then praised for it.
De Klerk, who was a principal actor in apartheid crimes against African children, was even awarded a Nobel Peace Prize which he shared with his black victim, Nelson Mandela.
It is also worth noting that the Western architects of the ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ travesty shamelessly proceeded to murder Sadam Hussein and Gaddafi for alleged crimes that were infinitely less, in scale, than those committed by apartheid fundamentalists in Rhodesia and South Africa.
Race was obviously the overriding factor and, the history should forewarn the prudent African child not to have any illusions that in the distorted Rhodesian and Afrikaner worldview, their rights hold the same sanctity as white children’s rights.
In arguing his case against compulsory acquisition and redistribution of land to black Zimbabweans as a way of securing a respectable future and hope for black children, the apartheid war criminal, Mike Campbell, declared: “If we win the case (in the SADC Tribunal) the whole Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe becomes illegal.”
Then in a callous disregard of black children as human beings, he proceeded to define an exclusive vision for his own white grandchildren: “I often say to people I wouldn’t want my grandchildren to one day in the future say, you know my grandfather had a farm in Africa, and a few guys came and said BOO! to him and he packed his bags and ran away and left the farm.
“I would rather they had the impression that we fought for the farm, whether we keep it or lose it.
“At least we tried our best.”
The documentary in which the sick racist makes the sadistic declaration won racist Benjamin Freeth accolades from the Western advocates of the ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ tragedy.  
A case in point is how in spite of being forgiven of their heinous crimes against black children during the war, Rhodesians proceeded to invite illegal sanctions that stripped life and hope from the African children of their victims.
While the same criminals were pushing for ‘White African’ status, they arrogantly believed black children should serve white children on land for which their black ancestors were murdered by the white ancestors of white children.
I wish to make it clear that telling the African child that he/she must relentlessly fight the Rhodesian settlers till he recovers his/her birthright is not racism on his/her part.
It is irrefutable life-sustaining commonsense.  
Having given the foregoing background to the Day of the African Child, it is imperative to revisit the contest that sparked off the massacre.  
The African children were massacred for contesting the use Afrikaans in their schools.
Afrikaans is the language of apartheid and the critical importance of any language lies not in its sound, but its ideological freight.
Language carries the speaker’s interests in a manner the speaker may not even be aware of.
Language is itself a worldview.
It is an ideological site or screen that predisposes the speaker to perceive life in a specific way.
What this means is that the African children who were massacred in Soweto had realised the tragedy of using Afrikaans to interpret their reality.
Using the satanic language as their medium of thought would have predisposed them to accept racist servitude. That language had no kind names for them.
It called them Kaffirs specifically created to serve white racists.
For the African child the use of Afrikaans to frame their ideas would translate to a psychological prison more de-humanising than the physical prison.
Commemorations of the Day of the African Child must in essence never allow the African Child to forget the massacre and the reason for it.