ANC Youth League leader Khulekani Skosana wants youth to pay it forward. [Picture: International Union of Socialist Youth]
The talented, jobless generation of youth in South Africa must take the baton forward. This is according to an African National Congress (ANC) youth leader and an anti-apartheid activist as the nation celebrates 29 years of freedom.
“We should be celebrating it,” said Professor Saths Cooper, a founding member of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). The question he asked though, “What are we celebrating?”
Cooper said there had been strides made since 1994, but self-serving, aged leaders posed a grave threat to those gains. Similarly, ANC Youth League leader Khulekani Skosana said the generation of amapiano had to be willing to receive the baton and take it forward.
“What 1994 was, was a defeat of political oppression, where we gained political freedom. It is not the end of the journey. What we think happened 29 years ago is a missed opportunity by young people, of that time and now, to take over a baton,” said Skosana.
By taking the baton forward, Skosana meant, youth would have to build on the gains of political freedom. This would mean continuing the causes for social justice and equity.
Amapiano, Zulu for “the pianos”, is a subgenre of house music that originated in South Africa in the past decade. It has since become wildly popular locally and abroad.
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Youth to pay it forward
Cooper bemoaned the fact that older leaders were not passing their experience on to the younger generation. The generation, he noted, comprised the majority of South Africans.
“As we enter the [30th] year of our democracy, we should have less reliance on others, especially self-serving political and other leadership. There isn’t that compassion. There isn’t that caring. There isn’t that commitment to the things that we want.”
Skosana suggested it was also up to the generation of amapiano to take initiative to take the baton forward. He said youth should be “running even faster … towards the final achievement of freedom – not just political freedom.”
Sadly, he said, “We are a generation that knows too much about amapiano and what is the latest BMW and Mercedes-Benz, but we don’t understand the intricacies of turning or refining mineral resources into what is needed to build a BMW.”
Cooper for his part said young people needed to be lent more support from their predecessors. This would unlock great potential, he suggested.
“The story about joblessness is a fake one. We know that in this technological age, there are less jobs. We should be reorienting our education system to meet that need; we’re not. We are perpetuating old systems and we are not allowing the flowers to bloom as they should.”
Julie Allie, Professor Saths Cooper and Khulekani Skosana further unpacked some of the burning issues plaguing South Africans nearly three decades after democracy. Watch the full panel discussion here.
