Mbeki urges youth to lead
PRESSURE GOVERNMENTS TO DELIVER ON PROMISES
YOUNG people on the continent need to be organised to put pressure on governments to deliver on their promises, says former president Thabo Mbeki.
Mbeki said yesterday that the recent student protests showed that young people understood the challenges that the country and continent face.
“I think the youth of the continent are aware of the challenges that face us. For them to become an effective voice they need to be reorganised. We need to look seriously at the question of the resurrection of the pan Africanist progressive student organisations,” he said
Mbeki was addressing a symposium on the current global political affairs at the University of Johannesburg.
The address, organised by the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, among others, was held under the theme “Current Global Dynamics: Order or Disorder? Exploring The Implications for Africa”.
In 2012, Mbeki told a meeting of Youth 21 global forum in Kenya that the youth must organise and ready itself to rebel against the older generation as they will be leaders on the continent by 2045.
“It would be critical (to reorganise students) because African governments, I am quite sure, are not going to move on many of these things without pressure from below. People need to say this is where the continent needs to go. You need that popular mobilisation. I am sure young people know this.”
Mbeki said changing global political affairs, where there were new strong players such as China, Russia and India, presented the continent with a new opportunity beyond a world dominated by the United States and United Kingdom.
He spoke at length about the consequences of a world dominated by the US and its allies. These included the increased presence of US soldiers on the African continent and destruction of pan Africanist organisations, among others.
He noted that the African Union ’ s inability to fund its own programmes was a seri- ous problem. The invasion of Iraq by the US and UK, the raging civil wars in Syria and Yemen, in the Middle East, were among the bully tactics the US was using to continue to try and dominate the world. But the rise of Brics (Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa) was a new opportunity for Africa to have friends with better economic returns.
Mbeki said US president Barack Obama’s decision to re-establish relations with Cuba was another sign of the changing order.
“Continent must resurrect the pan Africanist student bodies