Comrades of the YCL Discussion Forum, your are the finest force of online political cadres anywhere. You are ready. The time to open up new fronts is now. Some places where you can do battle in the "Comments" are: http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71616 (The nearest thing to an interactive DA site. Comments are allowed) http://www.news24.com/City_Press/Blogs/Home/0,,,00.html (Plenty of opportunities to get back at Lizeka Mda and others) http://www.thetimes.co.za/ (All articles from the Times and Sunday Times have open comment strings) http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/hartley/ (Times editor Ray Hartley's Blog) Buti Manamela is correct (as quoted in the article below) to say that there is no substitute for door-to-door/know your neighbourhood. Personal contact will win this election for the ANC. But there are many sites of struggle, comrades. Nor are they exclusive of each other. They can be complementary. The arguments you rehearse online will assist you in the street. Now that you have practised, see if you can make an impact, encourage our supporters, and confront our opponents on the Internet. _____
cpress.jpg Fighting for the facebook vote Caiphus Kgosana, City Press, Johannesburg, 15 November 2008 While many had written them off, the youth surprised SA by registering to vote in huge numbers. However, parliamentary correspondent CAIPHUS KGOSANA writes that getting them to actually go to voting booths in droves will not be easy. THEY have been given many names - the lost generation, the hip-hop and kwaito generation and the Facebook generation. They have been dismissed as generally apathetic and ignorant, especially when it comes to issues of social importance, such as politics. Hip-hop and kwaito artists appear to have found the right note to capture the imagination and notoriously short attention span of young people. But artists do not run for elections. And while many political parties boast well-established youth formations, politicians have still fared poorly in spreading their message to the youth - that is until US president-elect Barack Obama came into the picture. Through his powerful message of change and his effective use of online social networking forums such as Facebook, Obama was able to attract a sizeable chunk of young people to voting booths. He also employed an army of young organisers and hundreds of young graduates from Ivy League universities such as Yale, who for months were embedded in US towns communicating his message of change. When he was campaigning for the Democratic Party nomination Obama once famously skipped a stakeholder dinner in Iowa to attend a concert where R&B sensation Usher was performing. In South Africa, just when everyone had given up on the young, they went out and surprised all by registering in large numbers during last weekend's voter registration drive. The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) reports that of the 1.6 million South Africans who registered to vote for the first time, 77.9% were younger than 35. The registration figures also show an even spread of enthusiasm among rural, semi-urban and urban youths to register. In the Ndlambe voting district in Port Alfred, Eastern Cape, of the 1 382 first-time registrations, 913 were people under 30 years of age. At Temba township in the Moretele district of North West, a staggering 4 147 of the 4 812 people who registered for the first time were under 30. The same scenario played out in Johannesburg, where approximately 105 000 of the 145 000 registered first-time voters were under 30. But where have all these young people been and why are they suddenly so interested in politics? Both the ANC Youth League and the Young Communist League (YCL) attribute this interest to a campaign launched by the ANC and its alliance partners to encourage young people to defend the movement from attacks by opposition parties and breakaway rebels. Others say young people are preparing to reject some of the statements that have been issued in their name by youth leaders such as Julius Malema. Malema has courted controversy in and outside the ANC for making comments that many have deemed reckless and disrespectful to his elders. While the ANC claimed it had reined him in, Malema was at his worst last Thursday in Kimberley when he told Northern Cape Premier Dipuo Peters in her and ANC president Jacob Zuma's presence that she had been bought by business and was free to leave the ANC if she wanted to. The youth league's national secretary, Buti Manamela, says the heightened political activism among the youth first surfaced on the eve of Zuma's election as ANC president. He says there is a general desire among the young people with whom he has interacted to see Zuma become president of the country. "There's a realisation that JZ has been victimised and a desire for him to become president," he says. Youth league spokesperson Floyd Shivambu says they predicted several weeks ago that young people would register in large numbers and they are now predicting that a significant number of them will vote for the ANC. "Many will organise themselves in defence of the ANC," he says. But Democratic Alliance (DA) youth leader Khume Ramulifho, who has challenged Malema to a debate on the constitution, disagrees. He says Malema's behaviour and divisions in the ANC have made young people realise they need to defend democratic values. "Whenever we interact with young people, they say, 'that guy (Malema) doesn't represent us'. The statements he has uttered have provoked young people to say 'we can't be led by someone who is not responsible'," says Ramulifho. Anele Mda, who is spearheading the youth formation of the Congress of the People (Cope) says it is interesting that hardly two months after an IEC survey had indicated that 70% of young people were not interested in voting, the youth had gone out and dispelled that myth by registering in huge numbers. Mda says young people across the country have told her that they were afraid to question some of the statements made in their name for fear of being labelled sell-outs. She says the political landscape will no longer be shaped by any single person's struggle history but by young people's aspirations and dreams for the future. The youth leaders all agree that while getting the youth to register is important, attracting actual youth voters is going to be a bit more difficult. The ANC Youth League will revamp its website to create a portal for youth, extend its campaign to Facebook, MXit and other social network forums and engage young people in spaces where they are found, such as concerts, parties and other social gatherings. The DA and Cope have also talked of going full-throttle on Facebook and MXit while the Young Communist League believes that traditional door-to-door campaigning should not be discarded. Political analyst Zwelethu Jolobe, who as a lecturer at the University of Cape Town interacts with young people a great deal, says there are three categories of post-1994 youth. There is, he says, the politically conscientised ANCYL and South African Students Congress (Sasco) generation youth, found mainly in universities. The second category is made up of the young achievers who drive flashy cars, have cushy jobs and have no time for politics. The third group is the mainly unemployed youth who live in semi-urban and rural areas who have also lost interest in politics. Jolobe says just as the story of Obama's youth and rise to the pinnacle of US politics captured the imagination of Americans and the world, the rise of Zuma to the presidency of the ANC and his possible ascendency to the presidency of the Republic also captured the imagination of young people who had lost interest in politics. "As a result of the infighting in the ANC many young people have found a new interest in politics and have realised that they can no longer sit back and watch events unfolding without their input," he says. He says modern technology will play an important role in attracting the youth vote. According to him, all young people, be they in rural areas or in affluent suburbs, are connected by their common love for popular music, movies and partying. "Look at the ways that modern popular culture impacts on young people and you will get your message through somehow," he says. Manamela is confident that just as in the US, the youth vote is going to be extremely decisive in our own elections. "We may as well have a president elected primarily on the youth vote," he declares. As the average age of the current crop of voters declines and technology advances rapidly, political parties that fail to appeal to the Facebook generation could find themselves irrelevant in the not-so- distant future. From: http://www.news24.com/City_Press/Features/0,,186-1696_2426961,00.html --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] . 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