The status quo of youth politics! The youth of South Africa are facing a mirage of challenges ranging from unemployment, poverty and lack of access to education in particular higher education. These are among other challenges that prompt lack of skills, crime and purported underdevelopment in our communities especially those in rural and previously disadvantaged communities. We also have a few fortunate youth that is found in higher education which continues to face academic and financial exclusion with other seasoned challenges faced in the university sector .This youth even after it graduates finds itself sitting with those degrees and qualifications without employment as the state and private sector have less capacity to employ them.
In noting and pondering these challenges the question comes which organized youth group should wage and lead the battle to better the circumstances of this youth we have in South Africa? We have the African national congress youth league (ANCYL) and the young communist league of South Africa (YCLSA). I mention this two simply because they are motive forces and generally representing the aspirations of the poor and marginalized youth, unlike others which are right wing and serve white capital monopoly interest. These two youth formations share bloodshed history politically, ideologically and continue to believe in advancing the national democratic revolution. In recent history this might not be the case as we have YCL that acts and behaves like a private militia of certain people or a particular individual in the SACP. We have YCL that shelves working class struggles to become a student desk of the ministry of higher education whenever questioned by the revolutionary student movement. You have YCL that has become an employment agency for a few elite and convenient communists to be deployed or employed in government and parastatals, hiding with a narrow factional perspective called medium term vision (MTV). You have YCL that welcomes almost everything said by the ANC and government even if they don’t welcome they never wage a battle against those issues in fact they have become a “policy guesthouse” of the ANC and the party. Let me pause there with the enactors of political toll-gates after looting conference in Mafikeng 2010 and went on to suspend and expel those who held a differing view. In that context is the YCL a real vanguard of the working class and the poor? Are they not bodyguards of a few elite in the party? Are they not employment and deployment guards? Are they not opportunity and vacancies guard? Well it does not matter what they are but fact of the matter is that they have lost the morale and core of being a vanguard of struggles of the poor and working class. They have sold their souls and ideological tools for their immediate selfish interest, matters not how they can interpret, analyze and sloganeer Marxism as a tool. In my view they are like someone who has a navigator and a car but yet does not know where they heading to yet continue to drive. The ANCYL is a multiclass organization and a contested terrain for the youth of just like the ANC in its current form. The ANCYL has nationalists in the most and are mostly having hegemony in the organization. The ANCYL has a new tendency that mainly advances government tenders, contracts and BEE deals for narrow factional purposes and of course looting elective conferences. You have ANCYL that is populist in posture and always does political grand standing; this ANCYL is the one that continues to use government agencies meant to benefit poor youth like NYDA as platforms for factional battles and closing space for those who hold a different view. This is the ANCYL that has overlooked its role of mobilizing the youth and went to contest SASCO in institutions of higher learning for purposes of getting tenders, especially in institutions with massive infrastructure development over the past years. This is the ANCYL that recently says its ready to assume the role of being the vanguard of the poor and working class, claiming that unions and left formations have deserted their vanguard roles ad became lobby groups for positions in the ANC. This is the ANCYL that thinks is the messiah of “politics” in the PYA continuing to undermine others, simply because of their untamed allegiance to the ANC. We have an ANCYL that is not afraid to insult and label senior leaders and comrades who hold a differing view in the MDM. Let me also pause there with the ANCYL as they are from their conference that was successful and not chaotic like the previous one where we saw bums and other blasphemous things. The conference mainly resolved on nationalization mines, banks and other strategic facets of the economy, resolved on the expropriation of land without compensation amongst others. The ANCYL in current youth politics regardless of its nuances and tendencies is in a much healthier state of politics and organizational machinery than the latter. They have visible membership and has mobilized a greater sector of youth regardless of the populist recruitment drive used their branches are existing unlike the latter that has invisible branches especially in the Western Cape. The ANCYL must not also mislead us to a nationalization that will benefit a few or to pay back failed mining contracts by some in the movement who are in mining. This should not be an attempt to loot with another policy after a failed BEE policy, however we will be the as members to guard against such tendencies and intentions. The ANCYL must stop using the “generational mix” perspective for narrow factional upward mobility in the ANC for their immediate selfish interest. This should be a perspective seeking to unite and infuse a zealed leadership in the ANC not for purposes of a few elite that has less interest in the existence and sustenance of the liberation movement. In context I think the ANCYL can’t be a vanguard of the working class because of their ideologically and scientific posture at this current juncture. Yes It’s true that there is a regrettable vacuum in the fulfilling of the role a vanguard must do, this however this does not qualify the ANCYL being the vanguard. This status quo should purport the ANCYL to mobilize those left in the cold by working class formations, so that we have a mobilized working class and poor youth. I also believe that SASCO can play a more significant role in the mobilization of poor youth as it currently doing it with excellence it deserves however noting that it’s not enough. This will require a serious political bolt of consistency in it being achieved and I believe it can be realized and a feasible perspective. The YCL needs to start being honest to itself and start gearing towards the mobilization of young people to the realization of socialism. They must refute being an employment agency and private militia of a few elite in the party or else the current decay internally will subside to a natural death of revolutionary organization we love. In the main I was trying to say the one who is suppose to be the vanguard is not healthy to be and does not fulfill that role as ideally suppose to. On the other hand you have those who want to assume that role but their ideological posture and tendencies put us at doubtful mode for them being a vanguard, essentially they can’t be a vanguard but a wing of mobilization for those not guarded by those suppose to. Masilela Zwelo I write this piece in my individual capacity! -- 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] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
