Faced with a dwindling membership base and lack of clear strategic programmes, South Africa’s youth political organisations are again battling to formulate new roles that would make them relevant in the new dispensation.
Since 1994 these organisations have been trying to identify and redefine new modes of struggle after the collapse of the apartheid system. Political commentators argue, however, that the current crop of youth leadership does not have a clear political guidance.
Today’s youth leaders, they say, display misguided adventurism and violent tendencies that belong to the pre-1994 era. The actions of student leaders in institutions of higher learning also tarnish their image.
The recent ugly scenes at the campus of the University of the North and the ill-fated Congress of South African Students march in the city of Johannesburg left an ugly blot on the integrity of youths as “future leaders” ahead of this year’s June 16 commemorations.
The University of the North’s students vandalised and set fire to the institution’s property — causing R4-million damage — because the university management refused to give them R300 000 for a bash. If anything these actions are an anti-climax to the events of June 16 1976 where youth not only showed that they are a catalyst for social and political change, but also that their role cannot be undermined any more.
Student leaders have been accused of using student representative councils as platforms for personal glory and material accumulation, eroding the traditional role of these student structures.
This had a centrifugal effect, which found expression in growing apathy by youths to both students’ and national politics. Most youth organisations approached by the Mail & Guardian this week conceded that the post-1994 political dispensation has forced them to redefine their roles. Not all of them have been able to design a clear programme of action.
“For a mere fact that there is a legitimate government, [the youth] have been confused and [have] misunderstood the meaning of struggle under these [new] circumstances. This freedom has in many ways affected the political activism in our country. There has been a general political apathy as a result of this so-called freedom,” Azanian Student Convention (Azasco) general secretary Paul Cingci said.
Cingci said his organisation believes that “there is still a lot that needs to be done as the struggle continues even though many forms of struggle were done away with”. The South African Students Congress (Sasco) and the Pan-Africanist Students’ Movement of Azania (Pasma) share this view. Both organistions said the new political climate has had a soporific effect on the youth movement, reducing the level of youth activism in general.
They claim, however, that the situation has not resulted in significant membership decreases for their organisations. They say membership has seen a steady growth in the past few years. They attribute this to many factors. The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) says it is gaining more support because “young people are no longer fearful of being identified with the ANC since there is freedom in the country”.
The Inkatha Freedom Party-aligned South African Democratic Student Movement (Sadesmo), Azasco, Pasma and Democratic Alliance Youth say their memberships have grown because the youth are disgruntled with the ruling party. A majority of the youth are unemployed and feel “used and betrayed”, the organisations say.
However, these youth organisations do not appear to have moved away from their core traditional ideological orientation. In the main their positions dovetail with their mother-body structures. Do they have any programmes in place to address youth issues?
Virtually all youth political organisations contacted by the M&G sited HIV/Aids-awareness campaigns as their priority projects. The ANCYL says it is engaging the youth in voluntary work in response to President Thabo Mbeki’s calls for youth to form a volunteer movement.
ANCYL spokesperson Khulekani Ntshangase said the country’s youth lack skills, information, opportunities, support and infrastructure to start their own businesses.
Asked about the apparent youth apathy, Ntshangase said: “It is wrong to make an assertion that today’s youth are disinterested in politics as if all young people before 1994 were political.
“Just like in any country where the majority have attained democracy, the youth organisations have different attitudes compared to that of those that came before them. This is normal,” Ntshangase said.
The youth, he said, “think and behave according to social conditions they find themselves in … The terrain of our struggle is different. It demands that the youth work hard for the reconstruction and development of our country instead of throwing stones. There is nothing revolutionary about throwing stones.”
Sasco says it has initiated a women leadership programme in partnership with Swedish students to “develop women”. Through the students brigade programme Sasco also hopes to “promote compulsory community service that would inter alia cultivate a new sense of patriotism”.
The DA Youth says its leadership has developed various youth-development programmes, which include computer education and life skills. The organisation also has job-creation initiatives and Aids-education programmes.
Azasco emphasises a strong community involvement through community health-awareness projects and study programmes, and Pasma has programmes such as the Adopt-a-School project, a cleaning campaign, an entrepreneurship programme and the Community Higher Education Service Partnership.
The question is whether these programmes are enough to develop the youth and whether they are being implemented properly. Sadesmo suggests the creation of a youth ministry by the government. The organisation says the youth ministry could implement youth projects, as the National Youth Commission’s competencies are limited to policy formulation.
But the youth commission is optimistic. It says many youth political organisations have managed to redefine their roles and “continue to be among the key organistions that boast a significant number of membership”.
The commission also says some of the challenges facing the country “have been a lack of proper understanding of what constitutes youth activism … Clearly the youth movement has since 1994 succeeded in orienting itself towards the developmental agenda of the country.
“Since 1990 a considerable amount of work has been done with regard to youth development. This includes wide-ranging discussions among youth organisations to redefine their roles in what was to characterise the new mode of struggle and operations after the era of resistance struggle,” the commission says.
Many youth and student formations, it adds, are now actively involved in the process of change taking place in the country. They are acting as stakeholders in youth development.
But Sadesmo disagrees. “There is a general feeling among youth that they were used during the struggle and they were thereafter ignored. There is a tendency among youth to staying away from politics,” Sadesmo spokesperson Sibusiso Zungu says.
“There is a lot expected from the youth while there is little or nothing done for our youth,” Zungu says. He added his organisation has launched career-guidance workshops and capacity-building projects for the country’s youth in response to the 1994 breakthrough.
But how the political groups plan to tackle youth’s broader challenges — including rampant unemployment and poverty — is still to be seen.