National Youth Service: The myths and realities
Then there is the myth that the programme was compulsory. It is foolish to imagine eight training centres with a combined training capacity of 7 000 recruits at a time for a six months course could suffice to make the NYS programme compulsory at national
AFTER last week’s instalment on my internal viewpoint of the NYS and a bit of background to the programme, reader’s comments made me think of writing a follow-up piece regarding the myths around the vilified programme, as well as the realities.
I have no intention to defend any form of lawlessness that might justifiably be attributable to both the programme and to its members, whether in collectiveness or in part.
My views are not based on mere opinion, but on my personal experience and observations from the time I was part of this otherwise noble initiative.
I have never been in doubt that the propounded ideals of national service are always noble in principle, not only for our country, but also for all other countries that run similar programmes.
No sane person will stand opposed to a good historical orientation for citizens of their country, or criticise instilling a sense of patriotism in young people, or teaching them disaster management skills, or entrepreneurship skills, or values related to discipline, unity or peace.
These are universally acceptable principles that our National Youth Service was pillared on at the time I was part of it, at least from the viewpoint of the official Government policy, and also to the evident understanding of most of the colleagues I worked with at the head office in Harare, and that of myself.
The first myth that needs to be addressed is the assertion the late Minister, Border Gezi, invented the idea of a national youth service in Zimbabwe. Minister Border Gezi was appointed Minister of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation in August 2000, and the Youth Development Department was going to be a new structure in the ministry, replacing the Political Affairs Department headed at various past times by people like Webster Shamu, Dydimus Mutasa, Joice Mujuru and Simba Makoni.
David Munyoro was appointed the director for the newly established Department, and an idea of coming up with a National Youth Policy was mooted. He was coming from Local Government.
There was an all stakeholder workshop held in August 2000 at Meikles Hotel where youth organisations, churches, students, and the civic society were represented.
It was at this workshop that the National Youth Policy emanated from, and frankly the entire voluminous document had only two small paragraphs talking about the possibility of setting up a “national service” programme.
This was after one participant had raised the issue, and also highlighted that the programme had once suffered a stillbirth in the early nineties when Rtd Brig Agrippa Mutambara had been assigned to help set it up.
The bulk of the National Youth Policy dwelt on Vocational Training Centres, as well as on the best way to run the National Youth Council, the Children’s Parliament, Child President and so on and so forth. I did not attend the Meikles Hotel workshop myself, but a work colleague at a youth organisation did. When he briefed us on what had happened; the main issues raised were the National Youth Council, and the Vocational Training Centres.
But he mentioned that a decision for a team to go to Botswana to study the feasibility of a national service had been made.
By the time I came to be part of discussions to set up a national service programme, Rtd Brigadier Boniface Hurungudo had already been appointed to join the Department, and we were told the Ministry’s top management had made the decision. It was after his appointment that Minister Gezi started making public statements about plans to establish a national service programme in the country.
The National Youth Service (NYS) concept was adopted at the Great Zimbabwe Inn All Stakeholder Meeting in early April 2001. Participants wanted to depart from the 1978 colonial “National Service” concept that was designed to forcefully recruit black Africans to join Ian Smith’s side of the war, the call-up programme.
The other myth that needs to be corrected is the “Border Gezi” label to the programme, as well as the Green Bomber tag.
At no time was the programme ever named after Border Gezi.
The only thing that was named after Border Gezi was the debut NYS Training Centre at Mount Darwin. The rest of the training centres in other provinces had their own names.
The derogatory Green Bomber is purely a propaganda creation.
Then there is the myth of a militia or a militarised programme.
Admittedly, there were people within the NYS who wanted the programme militarised, and who at one time even wanted the programme transferred to the Defence Ministry.
But these were mere junior ex-military people who had been employed at the various centres. I remember there were vicious wars over semantics, like we “civilians” saying “training centre” and those of a military background saying “training camp”, or we saying “procurement officer” and the ex-military guys saying “quarter master”.
I refused to be saluted when I visited the centres, and so did many other civilian staff.
NYS instructors included ex-military trainers, political science graduates from UZ mainly, plus ideologically affluent war veterans with experience in teaching national orientation. These were largely ex-wartime commissars.
The UZ graduates stood accused of being loyal to the “civilian Head Office staff” like myself up to a time they were almost officially known as “Wafa’s boys”. The only person with a military background at the Head Office was Rtd Brig Hurungudo.
This confusion over whether or not the training centres were of a civilian or military set-up did affect the young trainees.
You can imagine having instructors some telling you that this is a civilian centre and others saying in fact, it is a military camp.
The courses covered included National Orientation, Disaster Management, Public Health Education, Entrepreneurship, Survival Skills and Drills.
Although some people initially did advocate for weapon training, the idea was dismissed on the mere basis that if the President wanted young people trained militarily he wouldn’t have possibly delegated this programme to a civilian line ministry.
Secondly, the President’s Office strongly advised against any idea that would mean a parallel military unit to the ZDF, citing the endless civil wars in the Great Lakes Region.
Bottom line is the myth that NYS trainees underwent weapon training is baseless and untrue, not between 2001 and 2004 when I was part of the programme, and not after either.
Then there is the myth that the programme was compulsory. It is foolish to imagine eight training centres with a combined training capacity of 7 000 recruits at a time for a six months course could suffice to make the NYS programme compulsory at national level.
If anything, there was stiff competition for places in all provinces except Matabeleland South, where it was always hard to raise the quota of a 100 recruits per centre, or 50.
Three of the centres had a 500 capacity, while five could take 1 000 at a time.
There was simply no capacity to make the programme compulsory, unless the programme was to be transferred to schools, colleges and universities.
Not many people within the programme wanted to hear that, for fear of losing their newly found jobs.
What was compulsory was to give NYS Certificate holders first priority for army and police force recruitment, as well as recruits at teachers’ colleges, nursing schools, polytechnics and so on.
Those youths who wished to join the Public Service had preferential treatment, but only for jobs they qualified for.
The other myth around the NYS programme is about legislation.
There was no enabling Act, no statute of any sort. Apart from the repealed 1978 National Service Act, the only enabling legal document for the NYS was the National Youth Policy Document. ◆ Read the full article on www.herald.co.zw