POLITICS

White domination must be destroyed, in all its forms - ANCYL WCape

Muhammad Khalid Sayed says decisive task of the newly elected League leadership in province must be to foster unity

Political Report of the out-going Provincial Task Team Convenor, Muhammad Khalid Sayed, at the Provincial Conference of the African National Congress Youth League, held in the Oudtshoorn Town Hall on 21-22 February 2015

Members of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress and in particular those members who form part of the National Preparatory Committee of the ANC Youth League Congress, the National Convenor Comrade Fikile Mbalula, the National Coordinator Comrade Nathi Mthethwa and Comrade Mcebisi Skwatha.

Members of the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC deployed to the Western Cape Comrades Derick Hannekom and Ayanda Dlodlo

Members of the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC, the Provincial Secretary Comrade Songezo Mjongile and our previous ANC Youth League Provincial Chairperson Comrade Siyazi Tyatyam

Members of the PTT of the Youth League as well as the Women's League in the Province

Members of the REC of the ANC, especially this region of the Southern Cape

Members of the REC and RTT of the ANC Youth League in our regions

Members of the Progressive Youth Alliance and guests from the broader Mass Democratic Movement

Honoured guests, especially our Veterans

Delegates to this Provincial Conference of the ANC Youth League in the Western Cape

Members of the Youth League

Comrades and colleagues

Today the ANC Youth League is in a better place!

Today the ANC Youth League nationally is in a better place!

Today the Youth League in the Western Cape adds its name to the list of provinces that have gone and held successful conferences.

Today the ANC Youth League in our province is stronger than it was five years ago.

Since the disbandment of the national leadership, the Youth League has been going through a difficult time of refinement and regeneration.

Even as we made our way to National Congress last year, we were not oblivious to the challenges faced by the YL as an organisation and how these organisational challenges impacted on the political landscape of our country.

While many may have disagreed with the decision of the mother body to convert the National Congress into a Consultative one, we must pledge, as a province, our support to the ANC in working together to re-energise and re-vitalise its Youth League.

Though autonomous, it is the Youth League of the ANC and we thank the ANC for the constructive role that it, especially through the officials and NEC, has played in rebuilding the Youth League.

This province itself knows too well the difficulties faced by a Youth League with no elected structure provincially. Since 2009, the last time the Youth League has had an elected structure, we have seen our organisation weaken and weaken.

For more than five years the Youth League crawled but, today, it can stand.

This is therefore a historical moment in the life of the Youth League in this province. It is a historical moment for the Youth League nationally.

It is important that we thank Comrades Mcebisi Skwatcha and Ayanda Dlodlo, NEC members of the ANC.

When days were dark for the Youth League PTT in this Province, when there were very few to turn to for help and assistance in rebuilding the Youth League, it was Comrades Skwatsha and Ayanda who were there. These senior Comrades were always there willing and working to see a strong Youth League, a vibrant Youth League.

Congress must also thank and acknowledge the immense contribution made by Comrade Mbulelo Memani, the outgoing Coordinator. On behalf of Congress, we express our revolutionary appreciation to Comrade Mbu for his efforts, his time, his patience and his sharp clarity on matters. Comrade Mbulelo has a history in the Youth League and that history prepared him for this mammoth task of rebuilding the Youth League in this province.

Little did he know, when he held the positions of Deputy Chairperson before in the Youth League, that one day he would have to use these skills to take this province to Congress as a PTT Coordinator.

Comardes, today the Youth League is in a better place.

Today the Youth League meets in Oudtshoorn, in the Southern Cape, in this province that too boasts heroes and heroines in the struggle and fight against Apartheid.

Today we remember those who laid down their lives and made the ultimate sacrifice, especially those here from Oudtshoorn.

  1. INTRODUCTION

Comrades,

In introducing this political report, allow me to quote to you from the "Basic Policy Document of the ANC Youth League" as set out in 1948: [and I quote]

"The African National Congress Youth League established in April 1944 aims inter alia:

  1. at rallying and uniting African youth into one national Front on the basis of African Nationalism;
  2. at giving force, direction, and vigour to the struggle for African National Freedom, by assisting, supporting and reinforcing the National Movement - [the] ANC;
  3. at studying the political, economical and social problems of Africa and the world;
  4. at striving and working for the educational, moral and cultural advancement of African youth." [end quote]

Throughout this political report, we will be referring to this "Basic Policy Document" because it is important that we remind ourselves why we exist as the Youth League of the ANC.

Indeed, part of the challenge today has certainly been that the Youth League has lost its focus on this primary role in South African society.

This "Basic Policy Document" therefore allow us to reflect and refocus our attention on this primary role as we rebuild and re-energise the League in our province.

In this the year of the Freedom Charter, it is also important that we look at the clauses of the Charter and reflect on the progress we have made as a country and as a movement.

We would urge Comrades to read and re-read the Charter and the NEC January 8th Statement released this past January. The ANC in a number of ways, starting with this January 8th Statement, successfully launched here in this province, has been reflecting and continues to reflect on the Freedom Charter.

In this the 71st year anniversary of the Youth League and the 60th anniversary of the Charter we must realize that ours is a historic organisation, with a historic political programme.

  1. NATION BUILDING/SOCIAL COHESION/FIGHTING DISCRIMINATION

Comrades, it is therefore appropriate that we reflect on the understanding of African nationalism, as espoused by the "Basic Policy Document", taking into account the various developments within the Congress movement: the ANC Conferences in Morogoro and Kabwe, the national question, the unique dynamics within our own province, social cohesion and nation building in South Africa.

Written in 1948, the "Basic Policy Document" has this to say on African Nationalism: [and I quote]

"Now it must be noted that there are two streams of African Nationalism. One centres round Marcus Garvey's slogan - ‘Africa for the Africans'. It is based on the ‘Quit Africa' slogan and on the cry ‘Hurl the White man into the sea'. This brand of African Nationalism is extreme and counter revolutionary.

There is another stream of African Nationalism (Africanism) which is progressive, and which the Congress Youth League professes. We of the Youth League take account of the concrete situation in South Africa, and realise that the different racial groups have come to stay.

But we insist that a condition for inter-racial peace and progress is the abandonment of white domination, and such a change in the basic structure of South African society that those relations which breed exploitation and human misery will disappear.

Therefore our goal is the winning of national freedom for African people and the inauguration of a people's free society where racial oppression and persecution will be outlawed." [end quote]

Comrades, I have quoted extensively from the "Basic Policy Document" precisely because the understanding of African nationalism has often been misconstrued, even in this province.

African nationalism does not mean African exclusivity.

African nationalism is not the opposite of non-racialism.

What it does mean is that a precondition for the emancipation of all our people, is the destruction of white domination, in all forms.

What it does mean is that despite the Freedom Charter's declaration that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and White, that the National Democratic Revolution, as articulated by the same Freedom Charter, underpins the emancipation of Black people in general, and Africans in particular.

Historic recognition must be given that the most exploited in this country and in this province in particular has been the women and children who are African. African Nationalism calls to address this exploitation.

The end to white domination as we see it in our universities, especially in this province; as we see white domination in our provincial government; as we see it in our economy; our suburbs; our farm owners; our judiciary especially in the rural areas; white domination in all these forms will only be destroyed through African Nationalism.

When exploitation and human misery, especially on our farms and in our townships, disappear and there is truly a societal change within our province; only then will African Nationalism have triumphed.

To further illustrate this point of African Nationalism, allow me to quote from a Discussion Document penned for the National General Council of the ANC in 2005, titled: "The National Question", the author writes: [and I quote]

"The African personality still struggles for breath. Our educational system somehow still uses the approach: more European-like, the better educated.

It is still more essential for an educated person to know the story of the French Revolution than to know the story of the Congo under king Leopold. And of course we are continually taken by the wickedly seductive embrace of Hollywood [and might I add: the Kardashians][end quote]"

In this respect, we must acknowledge the intimate connection between African Nationalism and Black Consciousness. African Nationalism, like Black Consciousness, is not a racist ideology based on the colour of one's skin but rather it is based on the colour of one's brain.

Too often we have seen young people, especially, have Black skins but White brains. We see this in the Blue Party and in the Red Party.

As the Youth League and as members of the Youth League we must declare without fear or favour that our brains are Black and our thinking of emancipation is moulded in African Nationalist thought.

The uppermost challenge that we continue to face in our country even to this day is the issue of race; and in particular the discrimination against Africans. While class knows no race, it is evident that racism continues to haunt our country and province in particular.

That Africans, not Blacks, are referred to as "refugees" by the Premier of this province, supposedly a former member of the Black Sash, tells of the ongoing discrimination that Africans continue to face daily in this province.

It is Africans, in the main, who have to suffer the inhumane system of the bucket-system and potta-potta.

The discussion document on the "National Question" continues by stating that:

"...One of the biggest challenges in the Western Cape is the racial prejudice between Coloureds and Africans. This problem manifests itself in almost all walks of life, including the ANC."

What we therefore wish to bring to Conference's particular attention is that whilst the class war and in particular the DA's war on the poor may be non-racial that is, poor people are White, Coloured, Indian and African, we must emphasise that the majority of poor people are African and that the majority of the people who suffer the worse kinds of racial discrimination, especially in this province, are African people.

Yet Karl Marx would remind us that race is only secondary to class.

If we were to look at the practical programme of emancipation and even the emancipation from racial oppression suffered by African people in this province in particular then we have to agree that Black people will have to show solidarity. A strong people's vanguard will have to be formed.

  1. CONSOLIDATING OUR BASE

Comrades, we have tried to go into detail about the question of African Nationalism precisely because it directly affects our base areas, especially in the Metro.

In this respect, Congress must therefore be concerned by the low turnout that we have seen in our base in the recent national and provincial elections.

Please note though, that when we refer to base we are not speaking about African areas only; rather when we speak of the ANC's base then we are speaking about Coloured communities outside the Metro as well. The recent by-elections in Ceres and Swellendam bears testimony to the continued Coloured support for the ANC outside the Metro.

Yet coming back to the 2014 election results we saw only a 66% turnout rate in ANC base areas inside the Metro and 68% outside the Metro.

While many logistical reasons can be attributed to this, we must be able to ask whether we are firstly capable still to mobilise in the base, and then secondly, whether we are actually able to bring people out, in the base, to vote.

The DA was able to increase its votes by only 2% and again the research indicates that they were able to achieve this by simply increasing their voter registration in their base areas and get their supporters out to vote.

You will remember that in 2009 the DA sat on nearly 52% of the provincial vote and the ID gained 5% of the vote. In 2014, with the DA and ID merging they received 59% of the vote - an increase merely of 2%.

Filling stadiums and hosting parties is no substitute for winning elections or at least getting people out to vote. Mass rallies and marches are no substitute for building strong and capable branches.

Just as the Youth League has had to endure a process of rebuilding and continues in this rebuilding process, so too we must lend support to the mother-body as it struggles to build an organisation in this province.

We will not win elections through campaigns, we will not win elections through sectoral work, these are only the additional, the extra efforts. We will only win elections, if we have an organisation and we will only have an organisation if we have strong, vibrant and active branches.

Comrades, we can over analyse and analyse till the cows come home about the elections but the solution is simple: we must register our people and get them out to vote. We must register young people and get them out to vote.

As we prepare for local government elections, an election campaign which will boast a strong and elected youth body, we must ensure that young people register. We must ensure that young people participate in the campaigning and the work of the ANC; especially through engaging young people.

But we must also ensure that young people are elected, young people who will champion not their own interests but the interests of the young people whom they serve.

  1. SOCIO-ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION

However, Comrades, part of the preparation for the Local Government Elections must be an evaluation of whether ANC municipalities in this province have delivered on the 2011 Local Government Elections manifesto of the ANC.

As the Youth League, together with the other Leagues, we must be able to ask the mother-body some difficult questions. We cannot blindly lend support; it is our ANC.

There should be no doubt that the mother-body will enjoy robust, radical and renewed support from the Youth League in its elections campaign but we must also hold the mother-body to account.

In particular, we must evaluate and ask what these ANC-run municipalities or sub-councils in the Metro have done especially for the young people in them.

What have our councillors done to improve the lives of young people during their term of office? Especially those councillors who are young and in some instances members of the Youth League, what have they done in their municipalities to further the empowerment of our young people?

We must recognise that the ANC Youth League did not have a duly constituted structure when we went into the 2011 Local Government Elections nor did we have an elected structure by the time we entered the 2014 national and provincial elections.

However, come 2016 Local Government Elections and we will have a structure in place. Hopefully by then our regions will be in place as well as the number and vibrancy of our branches will have increased.

The Youth League will then be able to make a substantive contribution towards the campaign and no doubt we will insist that members of the Youth League also be deployed to municipal councils.

This however is not about positions as it is about furthering the aims and objectives of the Youth League as we seek to bring about radical socio-economic change and improvement in the lives of young people living in our province.

Comrades, the Organizational Report will deal with various aspects of young people and their struggle today. We have emerged from a National Consultative Conference and continue to prepare for an elective Congress later in this year.

We will also break later into commissions in which we will hopefully propose resolutions that will be implemented by this province as well as take some proposed resolutions to National Congress.

We therefore do not wish to delve too deeply into the question of socio-economic or radical economic change suffice to say that this Congress must emerge with clear and applicable proposals that will improve the lot of young people.

We cannot fail the young people of our province by only concentrating on elections at this Congress.

We must thoroughly interrogate the issues of the economic emancipation of our young people and what this means. We must ensure that young people enjoy all aspects of human development especially through improvement of access to health facilities, education and skills development, among others.

Support must be given to young emerging entrepreneurs especially those who wish to be innovative and experiment with their ideas and we must ensure that all young people, irrespective of background and history, have a chance at achieving their dreams.

We must recognise that we live in municipalities mostly run by our opposition as well as a province which does not take youth development seriously. Instead of creating jobs, we are losing jobs in this province.

There exists no youth development agency in this province while the Premier refuses to appoint a Child ombudsman. Yet she is quick to appoint a Police Ombudsman because her priority is not children but to catch out SAPS.

We must show the young people of other provinces that the DA does not care about young people's development; what they care about is past privilege.

We must show the young people of Elorado Park and Soweto, the youth in Zwide and Chatsworth, the youth of Kimberley and Komati Poort that to live under DA rule means no development for young people. 

Comrades, an example, allow me to use the Speech of Comrade Ebrahim Patel in his response to the SONA, quoting from StatsSA, when he said in particular of the Western Cape [I quote]:

"Premier Zille took office in 2009 in a province without the enormous underdevelopment deficit that many other parts of the country faces: of provinces that incorporated the poverty stricken ex-bantustans, of provinces and areas with significant skills deficits.

Premier Zille inherited from the ANC administration in 2009 a provincial unemployment rate of 19,9%, the lowest in the country; today that rate is 24,5%, almost five percentage points higher and it grew at a rate faster that the national rate.

When she assumed power, there were five-hundred-and-twenty-five-thousand unemployed persons in the Western Cape. Today, six years later, there are seven-hundred-and-five-thousand unemployed persons in the Western Cape, or one-hundred-and-eighty-one-thousand additional unemployed people, 34% more than before she took office.

While job numbers grew in both the Western Cape and in South Africa as a whole since 2009, the racial composition of the jobs go to the tragedy of DA policies. The bulk of job creation in the Western Cape continued to benefit White compatriots.

White South Africans are a valued part of our country, like Black South Africans are, part of one nation. White compatriots made up 16% of Western Cape residents of working age in 2014, yet they benefitted from 57% of total job growth in the province, or seventy-three-thousand net job opportunities, from April 2009 to December 2014.

In contrast, Africans made up 32% of the working age population, but got just 16% of jobs, while Coloureds who made up 51% of the population also accounted for a very small part of the new jobs growth...."

Comrade Patel continues:

"...Whilst the number of jobs during 2014 in the North West grew by eighty-thousand and Limpopo by sixty-seven-thousand, Gauteng by eighty-five-thousand, and Free State by twenty-six-thousand, regrettably in the Western Cape sixty-five-thousand jobs were lost...

The General Household Survey which says that in 2013, only 52% of African households in the Western Cape had access to water in their house, compared to 97% of white households."

Comrades, this is the blatant reality about living in a DA-run province. We must expose the DA to the youth of other provinces but we must also engage national government, national departments, state owned enterprises and in particular the National Youth Development Agency to ensure that our youth have access to economic, social and human development.

Whilst 55% of young people in the age group 16-25 are unemployed, we must also realise and encourage that young people in this age group should be increasing their skills level.

We are all too aware that young people are forced out of schools at a young age because they must seek work to fend for their families. Nowhere better is this seen than on our farms.

We must seek proposals that will ensure our young people stay in school or institutions of higher learning while assistance is given to families.

In light of this, we must urge our partners in the PYA to work with us in implementing and seeking real programmes that will see the economic emancipation of young people.

SASCO's call for free tertiary education must therefore be seen as one such programme whereby the Youth League will work together, with the rest of the PYA, to ensure that this becomes a reality and through this our young people are emancipated.

  1. CONTEXT IN WHICH THE LEAGUE FINDS ITSELF

Comrades, the League finds itself in a global context where young people continue to bear the brunt of the neo-liberal and free market agenda purported by the global economy. We have seen an increase in the vigour of implementation of the same policies and mechanisms that caused the global economic crash in the first place in 2008.

In the last few years in particular since the crash, we have seen young people take to the streets of the capitals of the world and remote villages demanding a reconfiguration of how we do politics, concern for the environment and a call for social justice.

Young people, through their social media networks, especially Facebook, Twitter and BBM, have overthrown regimes, advanced riots and revolutions to ensure that their voices and the voices of the generations that come after us are heard.

However, it is appropriate at this stage to address the issue of social media particularly within our own context. Whilst these young people, internationally, have been able to call for constructive change through their social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and BBM, we have often seen, particularly in our own province, how these destroy and cause despair for the organisation.

Instead of using Whatsapp and Facebook to build the organisation, better communication and give the campaigns of the League exposure, Comrades have used social media to score cheap political points, taken cheap shots at each other and allowed for organisational discipline to be out done by "freedom of my personal page".

Steve Biko's "I write what I like" has become the abused mantra and yet it goes against everything that Biko actually stood for.

Therefore, while we must recognise the power of social media to build, we must also recognise the power of social media to destroy.

From comrades in Hong Kong to the streets of Havana, young people have shouted that they will not be dictated to by the markets and profit. The life of young girls kidnapped in northern Nigeria must be as sacred as the life of a young person in Norway.

In this respect, the Youth League must add its condemnation to the kidnapping of girls and the insurgency of Boko Harem in West Africa. It must also speak out against the cruelty and inhumanity practiced by fundamentalists such as ISIS against the people of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

However, we must always remind ourselves that terrorists are only born because of an injustice.

Today the call for a free and independent Palestine, today the fight for an independent Western Sahara and today the championing of the rise of a new Africa comes and is within the hands of young people. We, in our part of the globe, must continue to contribute to these efforts.

Congress must note in particular, the strides made by the Youth League in respect to the liberation of Gaza and the people of Palestine.

It was the Youth League who called for and continues to call for the expulsion of the Apartheid Israeli ambassador. The Youth League, especially here in the Western Cape, will continue to support the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign against Apartheid Israel.

At the same time, we will continue to expose the dubious and dreadful actions by companies who deal with and in Apartheid Israel as we did with the G4S Security company.

The Youth League in this province must particularly note the DA's desire to host an office, in Cape Town, of Liberal International. We must assess DA access to vast funding and resources simply based on their ideals of liberalism and free market economics. These forces, the very ones that crashed the world economy in 2008, see the DA as their local partners.

It is therefore incumbent on the Youth League of this province to ensure that our young people are developed not only in biological terms through a job, shelter and clothing but that we also give them the necessary thinking skills to assess critically the devastation wrought about through the policies and programmes of the DA.

We are faced in South Africa with this same liberal onslaught which purports that our youth today are "born-frees" when in actual fact they continue to live and work in abject poverty; the legacy of Apartheid.

While our ANC national government has done much and continues to do much to improve the lives of young people, we see an onslaught by the opposition and the media to portray our ANC government as ineffective and inefficient.

There are those today who have stolen the ideas and thoughts of the Youth League and portray it as their own. There are those today who wish to portray themselves as the friends of domestic workers and miners when we know that they promoted a culture of crass materialism when they led in the Youth League.

This newly found party does pose a threat in our base. Yet as we have seen in the results of the 2014 elections they have not been able to make great inroads here in the Western Cape and we believe with an even stronger Youth League we will be able to decimate any remnants of them here.

In this respect, comrades, we want to urge you to once again take up the clarion call to strengthen our branches. With constituted structures and a clear programme, our branches will become the bastions of fighting these divisive and liberal onslaughts. Anything that seeks to divide our people must be seen as a threat to the total emancipation of our people.

Unity in the base, unity in the ANC and therefore unity in the Youth League becomes paramount. The enemies of the National Democratic Revolution seek everything and anything, especially division, to destroy us, the people's movement and the people's vanguard.

Allow me here Comrades to speak frankly about the unity of the Youth League in the province; especially leading up to Conference. The decisive task of the newly elected leadership must be to reach out to all in the Youth League to foster unity.

Our disunity in the Youth League only destroys the chances of our young people in our branches and in our communities in ensuring a better life.

When we fight amongst each other, when we say "this-one" and "not-that-one" we use all the energy in those fights than in the programmes and policies we are meant to be ensuring in order to improve the lives of young people.

Young people meet us not at provincial or regional level, they see and experience us at a branch level. What is their assessment of us? Are we furthering the aims of bettering their lives or are we seen to be fighting each other?

At the same time, we cannot be seen as fighting other progressive forces. The incoming leadership of the Youth League must work with other organisations, especially if these organisations share the same programmes and ideals of the Youth League.

They must work with these organisations and their leadership especially if Youth League members belong to these progressive organisations. However, it is incumbent on the incoming Youth League at all times to protect and intensify the integrity of the organisation of the Youth League.

The League has and must work with Ses'Khona People's Movement. The League must work with all progressive formations. But there exists no such thing as a Ses'Khona Youth League member. Comrades must participate and be valued in the Youth League as members of the League whilst we appreciate their activism in other progressive formations that we work with.

Just as there is no such thing as a SASCO, YCL or COSAS Youth League member - you belong to SASCO, YCL or COSAS and you belong to the Youth League. These organisations may share the same vision and programmes but they remain separate organisations with their own integrity and identity.

We say all of this simply based on the understanding that if we wish to have a militant Youth League, a Youth League moulded in the fashion of Lembede, Mandela, Sand Tambo, then we must be a united Youth League.

The generation of Lembede was not afraid to take on the mother-body. Yet they did so knowing that they have numbers, are disciplined and more importantly are united. The Youth League can achieve anything if we are militant.

But militancy means:

  • growing our branches,
  • being disciplined at all times and
  • together through our unity being a force to be reckoned with.
  1. CONCLUSION

Comrades, three discussion documents have been released for discussion at this Congress. As mentioned earlier, we hope that the Commissions will give flesh to the policies proposed and the give direction on the programmes to be implemented.

The first discussion document deals with the Youth League itself and deals with the questions of what went wrong, if anything went wrong in the Youth League.

This document has political and organisational undertones and seeks to address the challenges faced by the League both politically and organisationally; at branch, regional, provincial and national level.

The second document deals with the Progressive Youth Alliance, reaffirms the ANC Youth League as the leader of this Alliance and suggests ways in which the Alliance can be a force to be reckoned with in society but also in championing the interests of young people.

The third document deals with the political economy and youth development and seeks to suggest new and innovative ways in which we view youth development to ensure that youth development is mainstreamed in South Africa.

We found these three documents as important because they summarize our broad objectives:

  • build a strong Youth League,
  • in a strong Alliance
  • with a strong programme of thinking and practice.

We hope that this Report, the Organisational Report and these documents will serve as a nexus for the real discussions where we as young people shape and determine our own reality and our own future.

Allow me to end off with a quote from a discussion document released in 1985 on "The Role and Place of Youth in Society, in the ANC and the Struggle"; a discussion document released for the Second National Consultative Conference of the ANC in Kabwe, when in its opening lines it said [and I quote]:

"The youth does not occupy a special perch outside its social environment. It is very much part of society. It mirrors the ramifications of the society within which it lives; it shares class and group loyalities; it engages in struggles for the realisation and defence of concrete social ideals and interests..."

The document goes on to say:

"No revolution can be victorious without the effective education, organisation and mobilisation of the youth into political action. It is none other than the youth (especially the working youth) who form the core of the ‘political' and ‘military' armies of the revolution. Their youthful energy enables them to perform great feats in the theatre of battle; their vigour enables them to be the most active transmitters of ideas and skills; their zeal spreads into their surroundings like wild-fire."

Comrades, an invigorated Youth League meets here today.

A Youth League re-energised with renewal and rebuilding gathers here today for this Provincial Congress. A new fire has started!

Together we have put the Youth League in a better place!

Together this province, with other provinces, will ensure that our zeal spreads into our surroundings especially the other Leagues and the mother body.

Together with the mother-body and our young people we take South Africa forward!

Amandla!

Issued by the ANC Western Cape, February 23 2015

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