*South Africa today 38 years of loosening the chains of apartheid where are we right now?*
As I seat here to write this piece today, my mind tells me that there are many young people outside there who continue to look back to what happened in 1976 June making a fair judgement of 38 years of eradicating scrupulous system of apartheid and measuring a progress made along all these years till today. In many ways, the respond one could get for this question is that young people have got different collected experiences supported by varying socio economic conditions. During the turner of early 70s, the revolution had taken certain shape and for that shape to broaden up it was informed by material leaving conditions of the people at that time. As I write now comes a vigour to reflect June month not as an event and Youth not as an object, but youth as a subject to depict an impetuous role they have played for the liberation of our people and June as a month serving as a symbolic womb for the creation of our freedom. We have today born out of all the experience of the past, the trace of all miles traversed for arriving to today’s point could be countless and endless. Here comes the point I want everyone reading this piece to capture, for the day made today and for the month named June, is for the dominion of our heartbeats to grasp rationality of the existence of our democracy and the fallen souls that fought for it, the households that remained child headed, families that remained fatherless and motherless, for the reason that their hearts were filled with much love for our people this led them to remain resolute to their convictions that is only democracy that shall bring all people together without regard of any form of prejudice. With that they kept themselves alive while singing songs like “*Freedom is coming tomorrow*” and above all certain piece of policies continued to agitate young people and the community at large to be part of changing South Africa. Amongst those policies is the Freedom Charter as it was used as a cornerstone of the struggle for National Liberation of our people. I was born in the year 1982 where sporadic boycotting of schools and universities continued. And this happened as a sign for our people to say enough is enough to the apartheid horrendous system that continued to undermine their humanity. As I continue looking back to the past I see a very clear passage our people have utilized to be where they are today. This passage is none other than youth and the National Liberation formations led by the African National Congress. This too could not have happened if there were no thorough analysis made in relation to the class relations and setting of objective goals in a form of programme of action towards the attainment of freedom for all. *The Communist Party of South Africa as it was formerly known had a Programme about the South African Road to Freedom, Path to power, ready to govern* and many other articles attributed or dedicated to the freedom of our people. My intention about this piece is to bring to the fore, what young people should emulate from the past, make a distinction and identification of common grounds in the past struggles. The application of historical materialism becomes more significant to be able to attain this splendid objective. Historical materialism shall not be about only understanding what happened in the past without extracting cognizable relations of what happened in the past and what is happening today. This shall be done with a reason to make the balance makeup of our current realities to shape the future. Not to be dogmatic. The youth who fought tirelessly in 1976 had to wait for about 18 years for them to have first democratic elections in 1994. Above all these youth continued to wage relentless war against barbaric laws of the apartheid and they never gave up, for theirs was not a sloganeering and campaigns for populism. They were guided by the true feelings of love for people of South Africa. As we travel this journey of freedom we meet many teachings and narrations about what freedom has brought to our people, although a continuous learning should prevail to those born in 1994 when the country was taking up its promises, a truth is that South Africa remains a very youngest democracy across the globe. In this short period of 20 years not a lot of achievements could have been made had it was not for the radical optimism our government under the leadership of the African National Congress has towards the development of our country. As I seat here to write this piece, I read many points I came across from many ridiculing the 20 Years of Democracy and some being fair to the reality and others also exaggerating through social network saying *“**Poor people can go hang. That is why there is no water infrastructure in rural areas. That is why we have no roads. That is why we have next to nothing. Every rural area with infrastructure has it by accident because a road was built from one industrial zone to another and thus accidentally the road had to pass such a village. The capitalist state in SA is no different to many all over the world.”* The only logical way to gel with reality is to apply what Lenin promotes to be the role of the working class as to “analyse the world outlook with an aim of changing it.” One must not be shy to accept that South Africa like any young democracy have many other things that remains unresolved and areas that needs full attention such as inequality, Youth unemployment and poverty and not forgetting service delivery question, all these needs a form of intervention by the government. Without turning a blind eye of the youth struggle that existed in the error of apartheid and that it never meant now that the apartheid is gone then our struggles are over. In where we stand today young people are unequal, as long as there we still have our children receiving different types of education in one government it means that others are still remaining oppressed. As long as we still have private and public institutions our people remains with the chains they desperately wanted to lose for so many years. As long as the land question remain a subject a state administration is afraid to challenge then our people will be owned they same way as their territories. In this current epoch we have so many achievements to celebrate yet we have so many struggles to pursue. The struggle for a radical change of economic transition and struggle for equitable education system base on local content of curriculum still remains. Our young people grows without connecting with their history precisely because the education system and the curriculum content they are consuming does not bring them closer to their origin. This is, but another side of struggle that our people should identify and associate with for the preservation of African history. I write this piece not so much excited, but having milder feelings about South Africa today. And it is against that background that I continue to appreciate the efforts made by young and old South Africans to bring South Africa where it is today. I hope that other young people of my age and those following behind could grasp one or two forms of struggles that shall symbolizes our most radical drive to advance ourselves socially, politically and economically. In my view, where we are today, requires fearless and most radical transformation of our economy without treating the monopoly capital with kid gloves. It requires equitable and cogent economic regulations that promote small businesses and cooperatives to flourish. That compel private sector to contribute certain quarter on the development of the emerging small businesses and cooperatives that are not yet used to the industry for them to meet the industry standards. Until business is also held accountable for the growth of our society then our country will be a better place in vain. *“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” * *Karl Marx (Critic of Gotha Programme) * As I write this piece right now, I am also thinking ahead about the role that new ministry of Small Business and Development will be playing and of course this is alongside with the struggle for the eradication of poverty and employment. Furthermore, I am pinning deep to understand what will constitute the regulatory framework for this ministry? What does it mean for the already existing businesses such as those that dominantly benefited in government ventures through tenders? This also bring question about the CIDB grading that continue to exist to determine how a particular business qualify in a bid for tender. The same must be shortened to favor mall business and cooperatives as a result of them being historically not benefiting within the system due to those set standards for doing business. These amounts to critical struggles that face us today as young people, not cheap politicking, and name dropping that seem to be taking a center stage in our nowadays political activism. *Takalani Mmbengeni is the National Chairperson for the South African National Apex Cooperative Youth (SANACO Youth): I am writing on my personal capacity* *082 625 1706* -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. 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