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Title: Content: The Bras�lia Flight G31245 touched down at King Shaka International Airport at exactly 2:30 p.m. It was a bright, cloudless afternoon�June 16th, Youth Day. A public holiday in South Africa, it honored the bravery of the students who had once stood defiantly against an unforgiving regime. In Durban, the air crackled with celebration. The streets were dotted with grown men in school uniforms�thin blazers stretched over aging shoulders, grey socks pulled high, leather satchels dusted off for one more march through memory. On this day, the past was never far. They dressed not in jest, but in solemn tribute to the thousands of Black students who, in 1976, had poured into the streets of Soweto to protest the apartheid regime�s brutal decree: Afrikaans, the language of the oppressor, would be the new medium of instruction. That decision had ignited a fire that would not be extinguished. The Bantu Education system had already been a chokehold�but Afrikaans? That was the breaking point. Quinton De Lange had been sixteen then�wide-eyed, angry, fearless. He had marched alongside his friends, shouting, singing, fists raised high. And he had watched many of them fall, gunned down by police as if they were animals. He never forgot. Every June 16th, the De Lange household marked the date with reverence. Quinton would retell the story like gospel�first to his children, then, as time wore on, to his grandchildren. He made sure they understood: this day was paid for in blood. This year, he�d planned carefully. All business had to be wrapped up by the morning of the 15th. But things didn�t go as planned. The meetings dragged late into the night. Loose ends refused to be tied. Now, as he stepped through the arrivals terminal of King Shaka International, the airport throbbed with life. Tourists, families, school-uniformed elders, and the scent of grilled meat from nearby stalls all mixed into a chaotic symphony of nostalgia and celebration. But somewhere in that crowd, beneath the sun and the sound, a darker note lingered�quiet, almost imperceptible. Page Number: Update Page