The league’s national general council must be a turning point, a radical reawakening
As the ANC Youth League gathers in Kimberley for its national general council, history weighs heavily upon its shoulders.
This organisation, born in 1944 out of the audacity and intellect of young Africans shaped by missionary schools and Western education, was never meant to be a spectator in the struggles of its people. Its founders were not content with the politics of polite petitioning, they inherited the flame of resistance from forebears who had fought bitter wars against dispossession.
We recall the memory of great leaders — King Sekhukhune of the Bapedi, who stood against Boer and British encroachment; Dingiswayo of the Mthethwa, who resisted colonial advances; During the Third Frontier War (1799-803), chiefs Chungwa, Ndlambe, and David Stuurman chased the trekboers as far back as Plettenberg Bay; Maqoma led three of the nine wars of resistance that took place around the then Cape Colony; Tshingwayo ka Mahoye and Mavumengwana the two great generals under Cetshwayo spectacular victory over British forces at Isandhlwana on 22 January 1879.
One of the chiefs who organised an armed rebellion against British colonial authority was Zulu Chief Bambatha. He was not happy with the loss of land his people suffered and the poll tax of one pound that they were forced to pay.
Hintsa ka Khawuta, Ngqika, Mgwali son of Phalo, Sandile, Mgolombane, Chungwa of amaGqunukhwebe, Klaas Stuurman, Han Trompetter, Boesak, Sarhili, Ndlambe, Makhanda, Thyali, Shaka kaSenzangakhona, Dingane kaSenzangakhona, Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, King Moshoeshoe, Khama lll, Bathoen, Sebele, Mzilikazi kaMashobane, Makhado, Linchwe … and countless others who bled for land and dignity.
The youth league, from its inception, embodied that warrior spirit in modern form, radicalising the ANC and injecting new energy into the struggle.
It is no accident that this NGC sits in Kimberley. This city, the site of South Africa’s first Zama Zamas, bears witness to the great theft of our nation’s wealth. Long before Cecil John Rhodes carved his empire in diamonds, it was African hands that first dug and discovered these riches. Rhodes and his ilk discovered nothing, they looted, commodified, and dispossessed. Kimberley stands as a living metaphor for the unbroken chain of dispossession that continues to haunt the African people.
The national general council takes place at a moment of reckoning. The ANC, having suffered electoral setbacks, stands at a crossroads where the national democratic revolution, Iqhinga lama Africa, is under existential threat. The question is stark: will the youth league rise to its historic role of radical renewal, or will it sink into irrelevance?
It must not shy away from confronting the burning questions of our time: the structure of South Africa’s economy, emphasising the dominance of the minerals-energy complex. The battlegrounds where true liberation will either be won or betrayed.
On the land question, anything short of amending section 25 of the Constitution reduces the debate to an academic exercise. Our forefathers did not die for academic debates; they died to repossess land, restore sovereignty, and ensure dignity. The youth league must insist that land expropriation without compensation is not negotiable, it is the unfinished business of our revolution.
Equally, the organisation must exorcise the demons of what we call Kebbelism, that toxic culture of consumerism and vanity brought into the youth league through figures like Brett Kebble. The obsession with champagne, nightclubs, flashy clothes and hollow posturing has turned too many leaders into caricatures, unrecognisable to the millions of young South Africans who live under the weight of poverty and unemployment. The youth league must stand as a movement of substance, not style, a vanguard, not a fashion parade.
The question of age must also be confronted with honesty. The 14-to-35 framework was a political settlement, a tactical tool in the days when Oliver Tambo called upon the “young lions” to swell the ranks of liberation. Today, to remain relevant and rooted in the struggles of actual youth, the league must align itself with the international standard that defines youth as up to 25 years of age. The national general council will have reached a compromise of 30 years as an age limit. This shift will ensure that the league remains authentically youthful, genuinely connected to students, young workers and unemployed graduates who are at the heart of our struggles.
The Kimberley national general council cannot be a talk shop. It must be a turning point, a radical reawakening. The spirit of Dingiswayo, of Sekhukhune, of Anton Lembede, of Nelson Mandela in his youth, demands nothing less. If the league shirks this task, it betrays its history and mortgages its future.
The time has come for the youth league to be what it was born to be: the radical conscience of the ANC and the fearless voice of the African youth. Anything less is capitulation. Aluta continua
Andile Lungisa is a former ANC Youth League deputy president and a member of the party’s national executive committee