The brief is tough, tougher than I expected. To write about the next generation — the youth of today, the people of tomorrow — is to write about a world of different, very different, worlds. I start on the lush lawns of Innesfree Park in Sandton on a Sunday afternoon.
Ten years ago the only black people in the park would have been domestic workers, relaxing on an afternoon off. Now the young black elite or “bluppies” (black yuppies) gather with ice-cold six packs, new “rides” (cars), kitted out in the latest fashions, the Black-Eyed Peas blasting from their cars’ boots.
If this is the image of tomorrow, it is of a fast-talking, palmtop-tapping, cellphone-wielding generation, a far cry from the image of South African youth in the Eighties that was beamed around the world — T-shirt-wearing, toyi-toying young people, struggling for this (Innes) free world of today.
This is a generation sheathed in the cutting-edge Afro-fusion designs of Stoned Cherrie and Sun Goddess, clothing that symbolises a new, assertive urban youth identity.
For 22-year-old Palesa Madumo, an executive director of Short Left, an advertising agency for black youth run by three black women, Innesfree is the place to meet. Filled with former Model C scholars, the talk is very now — from the hottest black poet to a new play or the opening of art galleries.
“This is not like a club setting where they pick up each other — rather, we connect to intellectualise.”
What will her generation be like 10 years from now: “In 2014 the youth will be focused on themselves because years ago we did not have the freedom to focus on our thoughts or choices.”
Unapologetic about such political apathy, Madumo says: “We are grateful for those who struggled for freedom but there is a natural move away from politics.”
Racial integration is still a pipe dream. Madumo has not dated white guys, despite hanging out with them. “Apartheid still influences jungle fever — it is not a natural thing.”
She says if you are being dated for the colour of your skin it shows that a fascination with “the other” exists among the youth. But, for Madumo, the new political ideology, such as it is, is about being “proudly South African” rather than black or white.
Not so in another laager — this one an upmarket Jo’burg club, Thursday night. At a glance it could be New York, London or Milan, expensive perfume in the air, designer cocktails being poured by belly-button-flashing barmen.
Boys gawk at 19-year-old Tessa Lesre, a marketing student, dressed in a white micro-mini and sexy white top. She radiates confidence. “I see myself as successful and independent.” In 2014 she sees herself as a business woman, probably married to an equally successful man from a similar background.
For Lesre and her friends, the purpose of their lives does not lie in politics, but in being business achievers and well-rounded human beings.
They agree that many young people today are focused on their careers, pursuing a lifestyle of consumerism. Shopping, designer labels, travelling, partying and driving expensive cars are important to them.
For Tessa and her friends, the new South Africa does not mean greater integration with other races. “The racial divide won’t be bridged.” This attitude comes from parents and communities who lived under apartheid.
Ten years after the birth of our democracy, South Africans remain deeply segregated in their everyday lives, says Jonathan Jensen, dean of education at the University of Pretoria.
“Visit any university campus around South Africa, and you will find that during breaks between lectures white students will be sitting in small groups in one corner, African students might be sitting together in another part of the campus, Indians students might be hanging out together at one table in the cafeteria, and so on.”
At one campus, the white student meeting place is called “Boksburg”, and the regular Indian meeting place “New Delhi.” When black and white students are seen together, the white one is invariably an exchange student from abroad.
In his study Spaces, Stories and Stereotypes, Jansen says the youthful laagers are hard to shake because they are inherited. “By the time they [young people] reach university, they already have firm opinions about those who are different from them. And to simply throw them together physically in the same space is to invite discord and distress.
“For many white students, black people are lazy and incompetent, they owe their newly found privileges to affirmative action, and they are out to ‘take over’ all space from white people. For many black students, white people are racists, impose their language on them, all of them are wealthy, and they are determined to ‘exclude’ black students. Neither group feels comfortable and at home with the other …
“I hate those beer commercials showing white and black South Africans hanging out together — smiling, well-integrated faces enjoying the same sport and, of course, the same beer. I hate them because they are dishonest,” says Jansen. He fingers educational institutions for failing to promote critical thinking around race and social responsibility.
In an insecure and bewildering world, many young people are turning inward, into the spirit, to religion.
One is 22-year-old Sultan Fati, who says his membership of a religious-political organisation is a response to a crisis. “The age in which we live in is the most primordial — brutal attacks, crime, drugs and gangsterism are the crisis age the youth find themselves in.”
Fatih has pledged allegiance to the leader of the group and foresees a dismal future: “In 2014 there will be an economic meltdown because of the fantastical financial system of the US.” For Fatih being a member of this organisation and having access to information on “how the world really works” provides him with a sense of purpose and a coping mechanism for the future.
In a similar manner, the tools Manie du Preez (15) uses to cope are charismatic Christian teachings. “The youth is a lost generation because they are not getting good education.” He says many of his friends just focus on partying, uninterested in a higher purpose.
It is an irony that, as the political system has opened up, young people seem more conservative in their views. Sociologist Ashwin Desai says that Hindu youth are becoming more, not less, beholden to the caste system; African youth are more, not less, xenophobic than their parents.
He attributes this to an effort to gain recognition and identity in a globalised world. His predictions of this generation, circa 2014: a dismal future with the negative consequences of the government’s failure to curb HIV infection, its failure to create jobs and make corrupters accountable. “There is an excessive lifestyle, a sense of entitlement.”
Jansen’s image of the generation of 2014 is more generous. “I have complete hope in our youth. I have seen, first hand, how close friendships [between black and white] form and how new bonds of solidarity are developed.”