Human Rights

Pearson High School staff and students are off for the day. South Africa commemorates the former Sharpeville Day. In 1960, police shot 69 black protesters in Sharpeville, Gauteng. 52 years later, the name of the day has changed to Human Rights Day but the subject of severe matter has not. Apartheid was amended, yet the existing tension among Blacks, Coloreds, Whites and Indians remains disturbing to outsiders, like me, as well as nationals.

An aftermath photo of the Sharpeville shootings in 1960.

According to the Washington Post, President Jacob Zuma encouraged South Africans to remember the blacks who were brutally gunned down for protesting against segregation. How exactly will South Africans do this today? I am tempted to ask the students what they or their families did for Human Rights Day tomorrow.


What am I doing? Learning and reeducating myself on the Sharpeville massacre and the foundations of a legal system which began the perpetuation of adverse conditions for South Africans.