BEYOND THE MALEMA ILL-DISCIPLINE LIES YOUTH DESPERATION
Perhaps South Africa was never ready for Julius Malema or his disrespect, or his youthful vibrancy fused with somehow youth-related flaws. Maybe young people were expected - like the youth before 1976 - to be confined again within disciplined lines despite being frustrated by even worse injustices and the snail paced progress of their own government's policies of economic transformation and land redistribution.
Maybe the African National Congress was never pregnant with a second radical transition after 17 years of democracy, 17 long years for which Tambo had awaited his whole life but which he could not witness.
Lest some of you judge me, let me not paint a picture of mindless solidarity towards Julius Malema. I may not necessarily agree with every bit of what he did or said and I subject myself to all decisions of the ANC especially with regards to discipline and respect of our movement in totality. I also denounce every fraction of ill-discipline seeking to bring our mighty organization into any kind of disrepute.
But unlike many, I refuse to frolic in the mud of forgetting the genuine (or what should have been) task the Youth League had meted out to the ANCYL NEC at their 24th national congress. A number of comrades are so stereotypical on this Malema issue that a cloud of ill-discipline covers everything that was coupled with Malema (along with Magaqa and Shivambu).
As a result the ANCYL's Clarion Call with regard to its seven pillars has mysteriously vanished and the remainder has gone to the dogs. The Clarion Call which I sum up two socio-economical aspects, economic transformation and land redistribution.
After Malema's expulsion how many ever wonder if there is a possibility that we are still excited by our proximity to the former colonizers - whom we have never been this close to since 1652. That we freely engage them and allow their educational rhetoric and slurs aimed at reversing the gains of our freedom. Even worse, we allow minority right-winged former oppressors and murderers to form part of these minority critics aimed at defaming and belittling by any means the leadership of the ANC. etc.
Perhaps the 17 year old Mandela fever is still stuck to such an extent that we have lost consciousness to the fact that we are living in a developing economy, the largest in Africa, while our living conditions are continuing to decline to a dire level of substandardness.
That the majority of our voters - young people - continue to suffer from unemployment, and the few that can proceed to tertiary institutions remain financially excluded and deregistered (UFS as a recent example). This while the ANC is in power. Meanwhile both arable and residential land remain in the hands of those who use it at their own discretion and capacity while our young and old people are cramped in square meter sized houses.
Today the Cape flats, Gugulethu, Alexandra and Diepsloot are paradises of drug and criminal activity for young destitute people; who because they were born in poverty, could not afford taxi fares to school, could subsequently not be absorbed into our labour market, were instead drawn into this mischief. Our forever expanding economy in its various forms, including GDP, will never make sense or be of any significance as long we remain the most unequal society in the world with almost half of South Africans are living below the poverty line, surviving on just over R500 a month .
In essence, the acts of misconduct and ill-discipline (as concluded buy the NDC) prevalent amongst members of the Youth League cannot simply be ascribed to ‘ill discipline' with the book then closed and everyone told to move on.
Young people are growing more desperate by the day and this, when fused with slow progress by their own ruling party, will one day have a devastating effect. This is if the ANC does not enforce radical economic transformation measures to close class gaps, to evenly distribute land amongst South Africans and to ensure that mineral gains beneath our grounds are not just shipped daily to enrich the West and components of the white monopoly capital.
Fundamental clauses from our Freedom charter (‘'the people shall share in the country's wealth'' and "the doors of learning and culture shall be opened'') have turned into wishlists for young hopeless people including those born after 1994. Today in short, frustration and signs of desperation amongst the youth will not necessarily manifest themselves outside ranks of the ANC but within, because members of the Youth League don't only form an integral part of the ANC in statistics but also in influence.
Rhetoric, purging and slurs in any form will not necessarily assist. Instead this has a probability of harming the ANC. For a 17 year old democracy, the ANC-led government is on course. But for a hundred year old organization, the ANC's influence on governmental policies remains indolent thus our call for radical changes moving forward. The agents of monopoly capital have even started their choreographed call of ensuring that young people benefit from economic gains of this country.
Their adventurous false call of marching to COSATU house as a measure to pursue a youth wage subsidy from our government was aimed at engulfing our desperate young people into DA's liberal political ship. Lest we have more of ill-discipline in our movement, lest we have more false advocates of ‘youth wage subsidies' and lest we have Arab Spring like riots explosions in our country, lets accelerate economical transformation in our country.
Biko Monyatsi is Young Communist League Albert Nzula District Secretary and Zastron ANCYL Ward 3 Chairperson
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