Revisting the role of the ANCYL at the current conjecture of the NDR The radicalisation of the ANC and its renewal has always been instigated by young people. Its the historical role of the youth in the ANC. The current decline in percentage in the elections outcome at the national level and most of the Provinces should worry young people of the ANC as the natural inheritors of this liberation movement and its heritage. Even the formation of the ANC itself came from a mind of a young person, Pixley ka Isa Kaseme was only 31 years of age when he proposed the formation of the ANC. This historical task must be undertaking with renewed militant by the current generation of youth leaguers. Young people must take their rightful place in the renewal process of the ANC after the elections. The youth must be central in the building of a new cadre as declared by Mangaung that this is a decade of a cadre. Young people should do so by renewing the organizational vibrancy of the ANCYL to be able to renew the ANC. The ANCYL need to reposition itself as a radical youth movement of the ANC. The current organizational renewal process of the ANCYL must be informed by its historical mission. The ANCYL should take leaf from the fact that it was formed as a result of the growing militancy of students which was demonstrated by students strikes at Fort Hare and Love dale, the ANC resolved at its annual conference in 1943 to establish a congress youth league, whose tasks would be to organize the youth to prepare them for congress membership. In other words the ANCYL was formed to give a political home and guidance to the growing militants of youth in South Africa. Thus in 1944 the congress youth was formed. From its inception however the members of the ANCYL focused their attention upon the weaknesses of the ANC, particularly its lack of militant political theory and program of action based on actions of the people. Thus from the outset the ANCYL set itself the task amongst others of imparting a dynamic substance and matter to the organizational form of the ANC. This took the form of a forthright exposition of the National liberator’s outlook, African Nationalism which the ANCYL seeks to impose on the mother body(Basic Policy of ANCYL 1948).From the 1944 to 1949, the ANCYL concentrated on working out African nationalism, criticising the old method of struggle of deputations and resolutions to the government, and tried to impose a militant outlook. This culminated in the adoption of the programme of action in 1949. For the first time in the history of the ANC, the national executive committee was elected which pledged itself to implement a specific program of action. The salient features of the program of action were mass political actions, in the form of boycotts, national days of protest, and civil disobedience. During this period the (1994 to 1949). 1. it was a small organization, with very few organized branches, whose members were predominately intellectual youth, almost all were above 25 years of age. 2. its main activities were small meetings in which discussions centred around the philosophy of African Nationalism and the defects of ANCY policy. 3.Its national conferences or rather caucuses were invariably held at the same time as, and between sessions of the ANC Annnual Conferences and the main item which discussed was in line to be adopted by the Youth League delegates in ANCY conferences. This form of organization only attracted young intellectuals and it was not a mass organization. There was quite a strong feeling that the league should maintain its purity by not becoming a mass organization. The sharp criticism of ANC policies from youth leaguers resulted in lack of harmony, suspicion and sometimes open hostility between congress leaders and the youth leaguers. ANC leaders like Champion regarded the youth leaguers as upstarts who wanted to usurp their positions. On the hand, the youth leaguers in many cases despised the old establishment leadership of the ANC because of these attitudes, not a single ANCYL branch was established at the insistence of the ANC. During the defiance campaign the ANCYL was disorganized as most of it leaders became leaders of the ANC and as result programs of the ANCYL suffered. Since 1952 when the old party youth league was disorganized, the youth league attempted to redefine its tasks in the light of the new conditions. A small dissident group which regarded itself as repository of African nationalism continued to attack the policy of the ANC, this was a group of the Africanists. The growing feature is one where youth leaguers unequivocally accept the leadership of the ANC and they attempting to use new methods of organization in order to build a mass youth movement. The period after unbanning of the ANC was characterised by a vigorous debate on the independence of the ANCYL. The exiles who were from the youth desk that was led by Jecky Selebi preferd to be a youth desk within the ANC. The SAYCO group led by Pieter Mokaba preferd to be an independent youth wing of the ANC or to remain SAYCO and adopt the freedom charter. SASCO and COSAS opted to remain independent and adopt the freedom charter as a common vision and be in alliance with the youth league. A compromise was reached between the youth desk and SAYCO which was a civic youth organization. As a result the following resolution on the autonomy of the ANCYL was adopted by the Kwandebele re-launch policy conference “ The youth can only effectively participate in the liberation of our country and get involved in the building of a democratic South Africa on the basis of the totality of knowledge and experience handed over to it by older generations. At the same time young people should not be encouraged merely to copy or assimilate what is handed over to them. They should do that through an investigative and critical approach. Real education in struggle on the part of the youth cannot be separated from the independent political involvement. A profound appreciation by the youth of the democratic ideals we are fighting for is a better consolidated if verified by their own independent struggle. Autonomy of the ANCYL offers the opportunity for the realisation of the boundless resources of energy, enterprise, initiative and free application of the creative potential of our youth. A scared youth will not initiate new methods of struggle or policies as it will be afraid of repraisals. The ANCYL and the ANCYL should engage on the meaning of the autonomy. The youth should be given space to engage in a revolution of course with the political guidance from the mother body. In other words the boundless creativity of young people is a necessary irritation to the ANC. The post democratic youth league defined their task as championing the interest of the youth and mobilising them behind the banner of the ANC. This youth league called youth people to seize the opportunities of democracy and enjoy the fruits of freedom. The Gallager youth league realising that the rights to vote and opportunities of democracy are limited by monopoly capital in South Africa adopted a generational mission to achieve economic freedom in our lifetime. At the present stage of the organizational renewal of the ANCYL, it is of fundamental importance that people in the ANC and youth leaguers themselves should eradicate incorrect traditional suspicions, prejudices and beliefs.it is only when have goten rid of this attitudes that we can really get down to the historic task of renewing the ANCYL. The importance of mobilising the youth for the liberation movement, cannot be disputed. To neglect the youth would be to neglect a vital and virile force of the liberation movement. The tasks of the youth have evolved with the changing conditions in the liberation struggle. As I have alluded above its generation had its task in the youth movement. The current generation task is defined as the twin tasks of the ANCYL as the mobilisation of young people behind the vision of the ANC and to champion the interest of young people in society and the movement. Gallagher identified the generational mission as the attainment of economic freedom in our life time. The next congress of the ANCYL should redefine the twin task in line with the generational mission of economic freedom. The seven cardinal pillars can be used to redefine the task of the ANCYL. The challenges of today’s youth are unemployment and HIV and AIDS. One of the fundamental tasks of the ANCYL should be to drive a skills revolution in the country and to champion for the inclusion of young people in the mainstream economy of the country. The tasks of the youth league should place its members at the centre of a skills revolution in the country. Members of the youth league must be found in various sectors of society. Leaders of esteem professions, sports, cultural groups must be found in the ranks of the ANCYL.The inclusion of young people into the main stream economy can only be possible if the youth have the necessary skills to participate in various economic activities. The generational task of our generation should be redefined in line with these imperatives of young people. The ANCYL to remain relevant it has to recommit to be a radical youth wing of the ANC or else it will wither away withy time or be abrogated by irrelevance. The ANCYL members should also give political meaning to the moria of disbandment’s that have taken place in all structures of the organization in particular whether the 25th National congress will be a re-launch congress of the ANCYL like the 1990 congress or it’s another normal congress of the ANCYL. This is important to give a theoretical foundation of the re-emergency of the ANCYL as to leave this to nature will make the ANCYL to be like a shapeless amoeba where anybody can pool it to his direction of thinking. A proper ideological and theoretical foundation should be laid for the ANCYL to be sustained beyond the national congress as the congress is not the end but the beginning of organizational renewal.
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 13:46:26 +0000
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