Fikile Mbalula is the newly elected president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL). He is 33 years old and has high ambitions for himself, the country and the world. The Mail & Guardian Online spoke with him in his office on the seventh floor of Albert Luthuli House in downtown Johannesburg.
Mbeki’s position towards the HIV/Aids pandemic has raised much criticism. What is your view on for example his garlic and potato comment?
Well, people who speak like that are less concerned with finding a solution and addressing a problem. People who say that the president has not seen anyone affected by HIV and Aids are playing politics with a problem that is affecting the nation.
The problem is that Mr Mbeki has expressed a view that many people — and in particular those who are dominant in the discourse of the public agenda — do not share with him. These people have a chance to manipulate the media and put their views across, and they are deliberately misquoting him. We can do nothing about that; it is a sorry day for them.
Nobody ever said that HIV does not cause Aids. It has never been said. What was actually said was that how the virus was discovered must be debated. Even the scientists themselves say a single virus cannot lead to a syndrome. A syndrome is actually an accumulation of viruses.
So the garlic and potato comment was a misinterpretation by the media?
I don’t think it was a matter of misquoting. There is a difference between misquoting and rubbishing everything a person says. The media are rubbishing everything Mr Mbeki said about HIV and Aids. They are not addressing what he has done regarding this particular issue.
There has been much national and international criticism on the roll-out of anti-retroviral drugs. What is your view on this matter?
The international community is very hypocritical on this issue. The people who criticise us should put pressure on their own governments to do simple things like handing out free condoms.
South Africa, and South Africa alone, is handing people free condoms, not anti-retroviral drugs. Condoms might not prolong lives, but I am singling out condoms because many of the African governments and most of the European governments do not provide them.
But wouldn’t society benefit from prolonging people’s lives? Parents will be able to spend more time raising their children, and teachers will be in the classroom longer.
The point is that there is a distortion of how our society must actually be saved. We are not laying the prolonging of lives only on the roll-out of anti-retroviral drugs. [To prolong] life, the fundamental question of poverty must be addressed. And one part of this issue is the nutrition of people who are infected.
If you address anti-retroviral drugs alone, you must realise that people believe that if you [take] these drugs, you can go on and have unprotected sex. We believe in a strategy that comprehends more than drugs, that also fights poverty and addresses issues of prevention.
Take a look at Uganda. In a population of 11-million, there are 300 000 people who benefit from a programme of free anti-retroviral drugs. A journalist writes a big article on this successful programme and everybody talks about Uganda as a success. But take a look at the percentage of people who actually benefit from it. Uganda does not give out free condoms, they do nothing about prevention.
I met a general in Uganda who has been affected with the virus for 20 years and has managed to live a long time without the anti-retroviral drugs. He only very recently has been taking them. Since the doctor told him he was infected, he has been eating proper food, stopped smoking and drinking. He is still living with this disease.
What is your personal vision of the mission of the ANC Youth League?
I have a global vision for the ANCYL, with a national characteristic. I think the mission of the youth league and our generation is to address questions of global governance for peace.
We must try to rid ourselves of dictatorship and ethnic wars on the African continent. We cannot tolerate acts of unilateralism. Unilateralism and terrorism are equally threatening [to] world peace.
We have to address globally the impoverishment of people and ensure that the situation of those who live below $1 a day improves for the better. South Africa is not a vacuum, but a part of these goals.
In February, you were elected as president of the International Union of Socialist Youth [IUSY]. Can you combine these presidencies, and do you have time?
I think they combine very well; the goals we have for the youth league reinforces what the IUSY wants to achieve. I just came back from a trip to Palestine and Israel where I [went] as the president of the IUSY. We tried to mediate between Palestinian and Israeli youth groups; we tried to build bridges for peace.
When I was in Palestine, Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah, I could also express the solidarity that the ANC and the ANCYL feel for the Palestinian people. Our struggle is not isolated to what the people in South Africa have attained. The mission of our generation is, as I said, to accomplish global governance for peace, and that combines well with the presidency of the IUSY.
Are you not neglecting the major problems of South African youth if you focus so much on international affairs?
If you are conservative, you will speak like [opposition Democratic Alliance leader] Tony Leon and say: ”Look at your back and go and work on the home front.” But you would not have seen a new South Africa without the solidarity of the international community.
We believe in solidarity and in unselfishness when it comes to politics. Those two hats [as ANCYL and IUSY president] are the reflection that the youth league as an organisation first and foremost is international in its character. It does not only look at the issues that the conservatives will ascribe on the home front. It looks at issues in a global context. A better world will not arise if the poorest of the poor are not united.
The social movement in South Africa is saying that the youth league is nothing more than a laboratory for new ANC MPs. What is your view on this?
I think in South Africa we don’t have a social movement; we have a job creation movement. These organisations have been created to sustain a salary for the people who created them.
They abuse foreign aid and funding, instead of actually addressing issues like providing electricity and water. These organisations do not even have a civic movement character in terms of addressing the issues that the communities are struggling with, nor are they aiming to resolve them. We don’t really take them seriously and we cannot cooperate with them in any form.
The critique they are expressing is poor thinking. Of course the ANCYL is a reservoir for political talent for the ANC, but it is poor to think that we are not doing anything else as an organisation.
What is in your view the relationship between the ANCYL and the ANC? Are you the rebel or the follower?
We are both the rebel and the follower. We will speak out our minds when we disagree with the ANC on issues or tactics. We are given a platform to express our view and our point.
But everyone must know that out of the youth league there will never grow an opposition to the ANC. The ANCYL is not prepared to be in opposition to the ANC, not now, not in the future. And if people are entertaining such false hopes, let them continue to have this distorted view.
In the April elections, the ANC obtained a two-thirds majority in Parliament. There are critical voices, inside and outside South Africa, that say that this country is becoming a one-party state without a healthy opposition. What is you reaction to this criticism?
South Africa is not a one-party state and it is not a dictatorship. The ANC has accomplished its victories within a framework of a constitutional state. We are a democratic state, a democratic government, the people have spoken and they have spoken in favour of the ANC programme of action.
As the youth league, we believe that our strategic objective is defined in the aspirations of our people. We want to remain in power forever.
When it comes to South Africa I misunderstand what is meant by a healthy opposition that is absent and not strong. We have the DA that barks [about] everything on a daily basis. But because they are right-wing and conservative, people, including white people, are abandoning them.
Now what is healthy? Healthy means that the ANC must be weakened in terms of support. And if you talk about pluralism, the party that has the majority, has the mandate of its people. What we have here is a Eurocentric conception of what an opposition means, and that particular conception is right-wing.
Do you think enough priority has been given to youth in South Africa’s first decade of democracy?
To say there has been enough priority would be an exaggeration. There have been some initiatives, but we still need to do more. I think government has failed in terms of youth service. They failed to deliver on issues like education and job creation.
What are the major problems that face the youth in South Africa?
The main thing we have to do for South African youth is to create jobs, by reforming the education system. We have to make this system compatible with the human-resource needs of the economy.
We have to pay major attention to technical education. If we could beef up training and technical colleges and encourage young people to attend these schools, we would not be left with a 400 000[-strong] unemployed reserve of youth every year.
The youth league is fighting for this. We are lobbying in Cape Town; we are speaking to the ministers of education and labour. And we are engaging the private sector, which should come to the party. The capitalists, the people who control the wealth in this country, have to show their faith in young South Africans.
We are talking with these companies now, but next year we will need a declaration statement. We want them to say: ”We have taken young South Africans through a learnership programme.”
Some of these trainees have found jobs, and the surplus has gone back to training colleges in the country. We strive to create a very concentrated and organised programme to absorb young people into the job market.