The problem with South Africa’s youth is us
As major political parties and the electoral commission encourage young people to register this weekend so they can vote next year, the approach is still the same as before. They’ve all used the same script: put up posters, do radio and television interviews and/or write poorly argued opinion pieces.
The message is almost the same too: tell the youth that if they don’t vote, they will lose their voice! Meanwhile, the youth don’t feel like they could lose a voice they never had. The cynical will say they’re being co-opted into a failing system that excludes them to lend it some veneer of legitimacy.
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to say to young people
“Vote to stop corruption,” for the youth believe that whoever will take over from the ANC aren’t immune from corruption themselves. Certainly not the current crop of pretenders to the throne.
This means, unless we change how society brings into the fold those disenchanted about the political ecosystem, the results will be as before. The electoral commission will tell us this week there are encouraging signs that young people need another voter registration weekend and will eventually take part in the election.
But then the outcome will be what we have had before: gnashing of teeth about missed opportunities and about how young people are merely interested in dancing to songs on TikTok with their tongues hanging out! The truth is, we say we want young South Africans fully immersed in the political life of their country, but we don’t.
We also assume they will have the agency to act on the gargantuan challenges they face, yet they seem resigned to a life on the margins.
At a societal level, the nature of political activism has changed. While the youth of yesteryear like Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela were clear about what the challenges of their times were — the dismantling of apartheid — such clarity in the current political climate isn’t obvious. Faced with problems at universities, our youth will tackle these. They gave us #FeesMustFall not long ago, the Arab Spring and, in the global north, the BlackLivesMatter movement. But outside university-level engagement, young people become invisible.
The truth is, we say we want young South Africans fully immersed in the political life of their country, but we don’t
In corporate, they are embraced and encouraged to be “problem solvers”. They are told they embody creative ingenuity and must wrestle with digital disruption as our world changes.
In truth, these are meaningless platitudes from older people who want to come across as being tuned in to youth energy. Yet many young people branch out to form their start-ups because they’re not trusted and given sufficient meaningful opportunities.
Many companies struggle to let go of experienced people of retirement age and thus make no room for the youth. Where the companies retire old hands, they immediately re-engage them as consultants because it’s hard to let go.
We say we want the youth, but, in truth, we want the youth not fully engaged. They are only good for voting.
The point isn’t that all pensionable-age people must be at home playing with their grandchildren. A few of them, not imprisoned by an air of haughtiness, should still be engaged, for there is much to gain from them.
In this voter registration context, you don’t glibly say to young people: “Here’s an opportunity, take part if you know what’s good for you!” That doesn’t cut it.
The UN says 1.6% of youth are meaningfully represented in political structures across the globe. That’s not anaemic, they’re excluded.
We can quote Mandela saying children are the future or former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan correctly arguing that “any society that does not succeed in tapping into the energy and creativity of its youth will be left behind”.
But what we need are leaders who can think beyond our current problems. We need leaders who understand our painful past but who use our diversity (not merely differences in skin colour) to drive us to a shared, inclusive and empowered future.
The sad truth is it’s almost impossible to find a political leader in South Africa who is not focused on the next poll, on what they could get individually or as part of some charter. They’re all focused on the now. Therein lies our pain.
What has not been said as we encourage young people to register this weekend is that we have not meaningfully thought about how to hear them and engage with them.
If indeed young people live online, how many sessions have the old people in our traditional parties engaged in online to not merely persuade them to vote but show them there’s room for them to meaningfully participate in politics? Where we reach out to the youth, speak their language and engage with them without imbuing them with impostor syndrome, we will discover that our young people are not simply the TikTok-crazy bunch always ready to dance with their tongues out.