The future of the young is dire, says PAC leader
At Sobukwe memorial, Narius Moloto says economy, education are dismal
THE future of young people in the country looked bleak due to the dismal economic situation and miserable education system, PAC president Narius Moloto believes.
Moloto gave a memorial lecture in honour of Struggle icon Robert Sobukwe, “Searching for the Voice of Sobukwe”, at Sammy Marks Square in the Pretoria CBD yesterday.
The lecture is delivered every February to commemorate Sobukwe’s death on February 27, 1978 in Kimberley, Northern Cape.
Party members, dressed in their traditional regalia, chanted Struggle songs to honour Sobukwe. The occasion was graced by the legendary musicians, couple Caiphus Semenya and Letta Mbulu.
Sobukwe, who founded the PAC in 1959, was jailed on Robben Island and kept in solitary confinement, though with certain privileges, throughout his prison term.
Moloto said Sobukwe had been instrumental in organising mass resistance to the apartheid pass laws that demanded African people carried passes whenever they wanted to move out of a designated area.
His lecture painted a worrying picture of the country’s youth, who he said were devoid of hope because of the dismal economic situation.
Young people, he said, had no hope of entering the job market or owning homes because of rampant corruption that eroded the dividends of freedom.
“The dividends of liberation have been eaten out by a terminally corrupt clique. In our country where these elites have looted, there is no room for youth, the unemployed and the poor. They have been brushed aside and forgotten,” he said.
According to him, Sobukwe, were he alive, would weep at the condition in which the people find themselves.
“Half of our youth are not only jobless, they are unemployable, and a product of the education system that is miserable and dysfunctional. The young people of this country are tired of hearing old men talking about their role in the Struggle against apartheid,” Moloto said.
He, however, cautioned that people must never demean the efforts of those who fought against the apartheid regime.
Moloto praised Sobukwe as one of Africa’s great intellectuals, who stood alongside Ghanaian great Kwame Nkrumah and Congolese political leader Patrice Lumumba.
He said Sobukwe campaigned passionately for a Pan Africanist vision, which was about African values of selfreliance, ingenuity, humanity, decency, industriousness and honour.
“Sobukwe campaigned for an African self-reliance, hard work and a lifetime spent in study. We are duty-bound to fulfil a much higher destiny. The voice of Robert Sobukwe is more relevant today than it has ever been. Of all the liberation leaders, Sobukwe’s voice was considered the most dangerous (to the oppressor).”
Moloto said the PAC had the solutions to the country’s ills. “We can no longer sit back and pretend that everything is fine,” he said.
We are duty bound to fulfil a higher destiny