Youth face ceilings despite democracy
Viewed through the lens of the economy, 2017 has been a terrible year for SA, its awfulness compounded by the fact that the most significant negative events were of the country’s own making.
One development that dominated the headlines — the revision of the country’s credit rating to subinvestment grade or, indelicately, to junk status — is an outcome of home-grown institutional disintegration.
At this time of the year, I usually feel quite optimistic about the future of SA. This is when I am privileged to meet a diverse set of young men and women who have applied for the Rhodes scholarship. Most senior Rhodes scholars think the classes that come behind them are more impressive than their own. We tend to wonder: if I had competed against this pool, would I have made it? The achievements appear to become more remarkable with time. The candidates’ level of self-awareness of their place in this society and in history is admirable too.
What is disturbing is the sense one gets that the challenges and obstacles to young people’s aspirations are no less than they were in my generation, which completed high school soon after the first democratic elections. It is heartening that young people, those I meet through this process, and many others who choose different paths, have taken up the challenges that our country throws at them. They fight for access to higher education, against racism and against patriarchy. Sometimes they do this in unpredictable ways, and in ways that transcend the usual barriers of class, gender or race.
I was recently privileged to participate in a dialogue with young women in Khayelitsha.
The event took place the day after the annual Nelson Mandela lecture, which was delivered by Amina Mohammed, UN deputy secretary-general. Her lecture, with its theme of “Centring Gender”, was a nuanced exploration of the struggle for women’s rights. It was also a reminder that this is not a onesided project to empower girls, but to transform the whole society. For example, educating girls, important as that endeavour is, will not yield much benefit to them if they are also subjected to the brutal might of a group such as Boko Haram. A focus on the “empowerment” of a vulnerable group is easily undermined in the absence of deep societal change.
Reflecting on Mohammed’s lecture, the young women in Khayelitsha spoke of their efforts to drive change in their community. Their verve, leadership qualities and curiosity were palpable throughout the engagement. They were no less compelling than those I meet through the Rhodes scholarship process.
Among the panel members with whom I shared the stage, it is fitting that it was the youngest member, Naledi Chirwa, who brought the house down with her searing insights, especially on the role of young women in politics. Her exposition on why kwaito artist Babes Wodumo is a deeply political figure, and a disruptor of conventional understandings of black excellence, is stuck in my mind.
The ugly reality is that the country has built a society that is unprepared for the young women who gathered in Khayelitsha that morning. The prospects of upward mobility, of each generation doing better than the previous one, are just too limited.
In too many intergenerational settings, it is common for older people to laud the youth for their energy, optimism and fresh take on the issues. But this is exploitative. The onus shifts to the young to reinvigorate society and to save it from a future polluted by the acts of previous generations.
As the wheels of leadership turn in the forthcoming political season, beginning now in December, the needs and aspirations of the youth should be centred and elevated.