INKUNZI YAKUSASA ISEMATHOLENI - TOMORROW'S LEADERS ARE TODAY'S YOUTH
Julius Malema, through the assiduous efforts of the media, has come to be regarded as a bumbling, brainless and disrespectful young man at the helm of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL). That he has not studied and passed a degree yet has been used against him to prove that he is not ‘the right person' to lead the Youth. I have listened to his statements for some time, and I saw myself in this young leader of our movement when I was his age. He says what he thinks, that is his bottom line. I wish, therefore, to state that I write to-day as ‘Julius Malema, Senior...as the Americans would say.
First, it was Fikile Mbalula who was denounced for saying things that certain people felt were ‘disrespectful' towards people who were senior to him in age. Remember that statement of his about leaders of the ANC Womens League whom he described as ‘holy cows' and ‘political paraplegics?'. People did not go to him and say, ‘Fikile, what do you mean by such statements?' The verdict was that he is a ‘disrespectful young man' because the people he was attacking were older than him. This time it is Julius. When he speaks his mind, on any topic, the issue becomes his age, not the substance of what he is saying; playing the man, not the ball.
Comrade Zola Skweyiya was one of the ANC leaders who attacked Julius for a statement he made, and the complaint was that he had no right to talk to ‘elderly people' in that fashion. I wanted to remind Comrade Skweyiya that at Kongwa Camp, he would attack the late Joe Modise left and right, because Joe was saying and doing wrong things within MK. Joe was older than Skweyiya, but the issue of age never arose. Why does it arise now when Julius needs to point out wrong things that older ANC people are doing? Julius has said, ‘The problem with the ANC is Thabo Mbeki'. The issue here should be whether Julius is telling the truth or not, not his age or his level of education. It was fair for Skweyiya to criticize what Joe was doing, and he did not mince his words, Skweyiya. Why should Julius be placed under the ‘age restriction?'
By the way, our Youth Leaders are not boys. They are men, younger than some of us, yes, but men. If we use the ‘age tradition' against them to determine what they should or should not say, we will soon use the ‘gender tradition'. In some of the cultures some of us come from, a woman has no say in matters that concern the nation. ‘KwaZulu umfazi, umfazi, period'. She cannot be part of a meeting where men debate and decide issues of national importance. That is the culture some of us come from. We are to-day guided by what the ANC stipulates as policy, and it does not say anything about women or the youth ‘bowing to the authority of the males or elders.'
Julius acquired notoriety by saying ‘We are prepared to die for Zuma!' He also said ‘We are prepared to kill for Zuma!' If I was a journalist, I would immediately have asked for an interview with Julius and asked him to tell me the following:
- Julius, who is going to kill you? If you are going to die for Zuma, somebody should kill you; who are they?
- Who are you going to kill? You cannot say you are prepared to kill without identifying your adversaries.
Nobody asked Julius to state what he was talking about. His speech was denounced as inflammatory, inciting violence. Against who? It was demanded that he should apologize, without anybody asking him to explain what he was talking about.
Was he saying he will kill DA members? We do not know. Was he saying he would be killed by the DA, UDM, IFP or the FF Plus? Nobody asked. He was just told to apologize. An opportunity to enter the world of Julius Malema was missed. The same happened when Gwede Mantashe talked about judges who are ‘counter-revolutionaries'. Nobody said to him ‘Gwede, why do you say our judges are counter-revolutionaries? Are they all counter-revolutionary, or is it those who have made rulings that were not in favour of Zuma? Explain please.' The demand was that he should apologize, and a claim was made by COPE that the independence of the judiciary was at stake. This is the kind of stuff our media is feeding us.
People's views are denounced without investigative journalism being undertaken to discover what ANC, ANCYL, SACP and COSATU leaders mean when they make such statements.
I support Julius. He is bringing into the ANC and the ANCYL a culture of plain speaking, something that had been suffocated under the regime we removed in Polokwane. Julius can be taken to task on the basis of what he says, not on the basis of how many calendar years he has spent on this planet. This culture reserves to us who are over sixty the right to talk nonsense and not be challenged by leaders of Julius' age.
In politics age has no place. Comrade Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, according to this culture was not supposed to criticize Manto Shabalala-Msimang's position on Aids because she is younger than Manto. We Africans have no right to denounce Apartheid because it was coined and enforced by Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd who was born in 1901!
Our former President Nelson Mandela was shouted down in ANC NEC meetings when he tabled his position on HIV/Aids, by a gentleman who was ANC Chairperson at the time...Monsieur Mosiua Lekota. Should we even bother to point out the age difference between the two gentlemen? We need to know where we apply the criterion of age, and where it has no relevance, otherwise senile old men and women like myself will lean on age to get their disastrous opinions accepted. Long live Comrade Julius!
There is an octogenarian in Zimbabwe who has done an outstanding job of bringing what was once a beautiful country to total economic and social ruin. I was one of the young men who volunteered to fight in that country in 1967 to free the people of Zimbabwe from colonial oppression. I was twenty-three, a young man.
I did my stint in the Zimbabwean jungle but was later captured, tried at Salisbury High Court and was sentenced to hang by Judge C L Lewis on the 30th November 1967. I spent 13 years in Rhodesian prisons and was released in 1980, when His Excellency Robert Gabriel Mugabe became the first black Prime Minister of a free Zimbabwe. He is still in power to-day, and the country has become a basket case in every way imaginable. Why am I revealing my politico-military history? Am I boasting?
I am most certainly not. I am making a case for the youth, the revolutionary youth like Comrades Fikile Mbalula, Julius Malema, Buti Manamela, Zizi Kodwa and many others. When we placed our lives at stake, to die for freedom, nobody complained that we were too young. President Robert Mugabe has never seen a hangman, face-to-face; I have. He has never seen the inside of an execution chamber. He does not know the feel of the noose around his neck.
Most of all, he has never had to accept that his last day on earth had arrived, the toughest admission anybody will make this side of eternity! The youth of Soweto in 1976 faced an armed police force with rocks, and were mowed down. Nobody queried their age. Now that we are free, the youth is relegated to the position of on-lookers, while the grey-beards like Thula Bopela make a mess of the country. They are now called upon to show respect to their elders in politics. How very convenient!
As Africans we are raised to show older people respect. Older people in the African culture are required to behave at home and in society in a manner that commands respect. One is not entitled to respect simply because he or she has accumulated a certain number of years on earth. Older people are assigned clear roles in society that they need to fulfil diligently. For instance, fathers are expected to support their wives and children. What do we see to-day?
Fathers like Sam Shilowa have to be taken to Court and be instructed to pay school fees for their children. A whole Premier? Was his son showing disrespect to his father when he took Sam to Court to demand that Sam should pay school fees so that he could learn? The Court told Sam that it was his obligation to pay school fees for his son, and on a Premier's salary, Sam could easily afford that. This is the man who to-day wants to convince people that he can solve their economic problems if they vote for him. There are many others like him in our society. Robert Mugabe feels disrespected by the people (especially the young people) of Zimbabwe who voted him out of power in March 2008.
There is a Nigerian proverb which says that when a cow eats grass the calf watches its mouth. In plain terms it means that young people watch what we older people do and they could imitate us. The corruption, the power-mongering, the sycophancy, the tribalism that has been seen in the ANC has not gone without being noticed by the Youth. Some of them have imitated us, but I go with those who have seen us old people for what we are, and have chosen to denounce what we do. When the Youth takes over the orientation of society because the older people have failed to demonstrate what should be done, I say it is time for the older people to stand aside, shut up and listen. Old age is not an insurance policy to positions of leadership.
Old age in Africa is synonymous with wisdom. Old people who say and do stupid things cannot hide behind their age. We read that a very old woman said recently that because her son had been expelled from a position of power, the ANC should die, and an organization formed by people who are loyal to her son should take over the role of the African National Congress. Other old women like Ma Albertina Sisulu did not denounce the ANC because her husband did not become President of South Africa.
Old men like Madiba stepped down from being President of South Africa after only one term. What lesson was he teaching us by so doing? After him came a leader who needed to be voted out of the leadership of the ANC and the country, chasing a third term. He is older than Julius Malema, so Julius was wrong to say ‘The problem in the ANC is Thabo Mbeki!' Remember Comrades, the bulls of to-morrow are the calves of to-day....Inkunzi yakusasa isematholeni.
Thula Bopela, alias John Drinkwater, is a Security Guard at Parliament and is solely responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.
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