And across the ocean, in Ferguson, Missouri, another poster rhymed with this moment. The words on that placard, protesting Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a police officer last year, ricochet across time and space. That poster simply stated: “I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit”.
Eyewitness News on 22 October 2015
In a sea of protesting students, her arms are outstretched, holding up a piece of cardboard emblazoned with red writing. On Parliament’s doorstep, the poster she clutches asks a poignant question: 1976?
Imraan Christian’s powerful image, taken at yesterday’s national shutdown, rhymes with the historical student protests of 1976. It echoes a struggle entangled with history, and unfinished, for many reasons, with a stark and searing clarity. Even as this moment is also different to what came before it. Even as this struggle has its own particularities.