Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) president Thulani Ngwenya has questioned the relevance of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and Young Communist League (YCL), accusing both of entangling themselves in matters that have nothing to do with them.
“The youth of 1976 understood that what was happening was part and parcel of the much broader struggle over who has power in South Africa and whose lives were allowed to matter if they did not challenge the status quo,” Ngwenya said.
He said any leader of the national democratic movement who does not challenge the status quo is a “factory fault”.
South Africans, including some members of the ANC, have questioned the relevance of the ANCYL after former youth league president Julius Malema left the formation.
Most have viewed it as being aligned to ANC factions and many say the leadership exists to protect the interest of the party’s secretary-general Fikile Mbalula.
He said leaders could not stand in front of the masses without challenging the status quo.
“You can’t stand up and say: ‘Everything will be fixed.’ Who will fix it?
“If you don't challenge the status quo, you are a factory fault. The youth of 1976 marked a turning point in this journey towards democracy. We would not have been here if they had not challenged Afrikaans.
“We would not have been here if they had not left the classroom and gone out to say: ‘Black power.’ The message that we must get out of this central committee is that we must challenge the status quo.”
He warned ANC leaders that they would not keep quiet if they failed to protect and take care of workers.
Ngwenya has also called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare the killing of police officers a crime against the state.
He said nobody talked about the police officers who were killed during the Marikana massacre.
Last week marked 14 years since police killed 34 miners at Marikana.The miners’ families are waiting for accountability, while the National Union of Mineworkers says the deaths and violence that preceded the massacre have also been overlooked.
“We need to say this, even if it’s painful: our members were killed in a brutal manner but nobody is talking about that. We are not saying it should have happened that way in a democratic dispensation.”