Does the ANC Youth League Need Rebuilding, Remodelling or a Revival? Lesego Makhubela 09 November 2014 Monuments cannot be broken down and then be rebuild anew, artifacts cannot be shredded and recrafted, historical land marks and heritage sites, such as the University of Timbaktu in Mali cannot be collapsed and restored, for if that happens even if the structure being built anew to resemble the original structure, but the scientific truth is that, the newly built structure is not the original structure but a resemblance of the original structure. Did the disbandment of the ANC Youth League mean that the ANC Youth League was broken down to be built anew?. Did the dissolution of the National Executive Committee suggest that the ANCYL was being shredded to be recrafted? Can the restoration of a structure be achieved without compromising its original meaning? Do you take a hummer to crash down the whole computer because it has been infected by a virus? The question that needs to asked is this, is the ANC Youth League going through a rebuilding dispensation or is it going through an epoch of restoration or revival? What is the motive behind either the rebuilding, restoration or revival? Is it to cleanse the infiltration of the league by alien tendencies that were at its highest echelons of power and at the helm of its leadership who had poisoned its membership to walk in shady and wicked paths? Is it not that infiltration is operationally normal? I am asking these questions not because I doubt the wisdom of the ANC NEC in disbanding the ANCYL but because I think we should carefully consider and have an enlightened understanding and view of where the ANC Youth League is heading to, we need to define whether we are rebuilding or we are reviving, I am of an assertion that the understanding of the latter is the nexus of the success of our historical mission. If we are rebuilding then which blue prints are we using to do so? How do we successfully rebuild without having those appointed as architects of the rebuilding process doing so without the temptation to build themselves as they masquerade as rebuilders? If we are indeed rebuilding how do we prevent the influence and pressure, exerted by external forces that might have dubious interests to craft the League according to their desires, to frame it into a desk, a conveyor belts of their views and use its infrastructure to cling to power or to exalt themselves? Have we considered that if we accept the proposition that this is a “rebuilding period” then how can we prevent it being delayed by these two factors: those who are opportunistically building themselves whilst masquerading as builders of the league and external factors that might hijack the League so as to use it as the means to an end dubiously so, given that ANC structures will be going to regional and provincial congresses and that there might be those who are already planning 2017? I want to argue that the this is not the epoch nor the dispensation of “the rebuilding of the ANCYL”, I believe what was termed the re-establishment of the ANCY Youth League following the unbanning of the ANC by the apartheid government and the dissolution of SAYCO that was led by the lion of the North cde President Peter Mokaba who was elected the ANC Youth League first president was the rebuilding of the Colossus known as the league. It perplexes me that we would accept a proposition that this is the rebuilding phase when after almost 2 decades when the ANC and its leagues were banned and could not legally be allowed to operate and upon unbanning the ANC declared the period at that time the re-establishment of the ANC Youth League and now because of a quest to cleanse the structure from a virus that infected the organisation and paralysed it into an amoeba without any direction we would want to declare this a rebuilding process. My argument is that this is the epoch of the Revival of the Youth Movement in South Africa and the whole SADAC region. Given that I wish to define this as the Epoch for the Revival of the ANC Youth League it then means that we have a daunting task to ensure that we play a crucial role in building a highest level of consciousness to Youth Leaguers not to allow the ANCYL to be reduced to a desk and conveyor belt during internal contestations but more fully to be the firewall against the pied pipers of our modern day who are using misguided militancy and rhetoric to demobilise young people against the congress movement. The ANCYL should reposition itself to be in the forefront of challenges that confronts young people in this country, given the fact that the highest unemployed population, the highest number of those serving jail terms and those who are still pinned down by a rigid and stubborn apartheid economic system are youth and women in this country. The stretch of imagination of the current leaders whilst they were youth arrived us at the dispensation of the fullness of times which is political freedom but it is the stretch of imagination of the current generation that can arrive us at the achievement of the tenants of the freedom charter and indeed the future is in the freedom charter, the future is in the imagination of young people. We of this generation are the strength of the present, the hope of the future generations and the sum total of all the generations that have come and past before us. “And lessons from dialectical materialism, the old will not die and varnish without a push and the new will not be born and rise without a struggle” the triumph of the African National Congress was in the main on the implementation and success of the ANCYL 1944 Program Of Action and this simply and profoundly translates to the ANC Youth League being the corner stone of the African National Congress and the entire mass democratic movement. Young people are inherently leaders in an embryonic form, they possess the ability to see things in seed and the energy to sustain and fight any battle The role of the youth league and the struggles that the league fought and triumphed on represents the important role that the organisation has played in the political liberation of all South Africans. The ANCYL is the melting pot that produced the most exceptional leaders for the African National Congress, in fact the inception of the Youth League and its energetic programmes illuminated the waning African National Congress and ignited radiantly, hope amongst the despised that the apartheid demon could be defeated. I am insisting that the as ANCYL we must fight to recover and maintain our identity as an organisation, refuse to accept our characterisation by the those who intend to craft us into their zombies, with no unique sense of ourselves, with no culture and values. We must be careful of naughty uncles with dubious intentions The Role of Young People in Revolutions There is no doubt that what we saw in Egypt and Tunisia were genuinely popular and peaceful Uprisings aimed at the democratic transformation of these two African countries, starting with the overthrow of the ruling groups. Accordingly, the Uprisings aimed to achieve the fundamental transformation of their societies, and not only their political systems. It is also clear that in both instances the youth and students exercised leadership by being the first to take to the streets and by their persistence until the first objective of the Uprising, the overthrow of the ruling groups was achieved. The revolution in the Arab spring was led by no one but by young people. The role of the youth movements in Asian, South American and mostly in African colonial states, catalyzed the liberation of the countries they lead, It is also significant that the governments of both Tunisia and Egypt collapsed within a very short time after the start of the Uprisings, marked in particular by the resignation of the Heads of State, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak respectively. In apartheid South Africa it was the call of the late president of the ANC Oliver Tambo who made the call to the youth of South Africa from exile to make “apartheid unworkable, and to make South Africa un governable” that ultimately brought down apartheid to its knees and the ANCYL leaders and student leaders working with those who had a YL identity were at the nexus of this call to action. Infect Robert Mugabe, Thomas Sankara, Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Eduardo Mondlana, Samorah Machel and many others were infact in their youth when they lead successful revolutions. In our quest for the revival and restoration of the ANCYL and the entire youth movement let us inculcate within us the wise words of a phenomenal scholar and academic W.E.B Dubois who said the following “Men of America and youth of our time, the problem is plain before you. Here is a race transplanted through the criminal foolishness of your fathers. Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work—it must teach Life. The Talented Tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people. No others can do this and Negro colleges must train men for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men It has become vividly clear to all of us that there is indeed a second scrumble of South Africas mineral resources and those who want to achieve that they are doing so by weakening the ANC through the ANCYL and the Unions in this they would have achieved the collapse of the African national congress. The Future is the freedom Charter
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 08:51:54 +0000
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