Speech by ANCYL President Julius Malema at the 64th Anniversary Rally of the ANC Youth League, Atlanta Stadium, Witbank (Emalahleni), October 26 2008
Comrades, compatriots, defenders of the revolution, young lions
Today we mark 64 fighting years of oufr gallant youth movement which has distinguished itself as a trendsetter and a political home to South Africa's youth. Throughout its history, it has led from the front and produced many leaders of our revolutionary movement, the ANC. We remain conscious of the obligations and challenges facing us as a preparatory political school charged with the responsibility to groom tomorrow's leaders of the ANC. It is a task we have always embraced with zeal and we recommit ourselves that we will not be found wanting in producing the next generation of leaders capable of leading our glorious movement and the country.
It is from our ranks where great leaders of the ANC have emerged. Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and man y others drank from this well and proceeded to lead the ANC with dignity and diligence. Our historic mission of being a preparatory school for the ANC and mobilising young people behind the vision of the ANC is more relevant today than at any other time in the 6 decades of the ANCYL's existence.
As we pay homage to our founding fathers, whose foresight and impatience for change created the ANCYL, we must recommit ourselves to the ideals they embodied and the vision they articulated. Successive leadership generations have each crafted their own pat h in our political landscape and have left a legacy for us to emulate and improve on. We remain the militant young lions of Oliver Tambo, impatient for change towards a better life. As we stand on this platform, we dare proclaim for all to hear that we wil l not be cowed into submission because those who disagree with us label us as hooligans devoid of respect and vision.
Our mission to realise a nation-state that is truly emancipated must be seen to its logical conclusion at all costs. Ours is a grand vision that aims to achieve a society where poverty is eradicated, our people live in peace side by side, free from any for m of discrimination and all are equal before the law, must win the day. This is the kind of society envisioned by the Freedom Charter, for which our forebears struggled for and many laid down their lives for.
Our march towards its realisation is unstoppable. We must not be hoodwinked into believing lies and half-truths the prophets of doom are spreading about our revolutionary movement, the ANC. Those who stand on dark corners and proclaim that the ANC has lost its moral compass and have abandoned the Freedom Charter are merely spreading lies to advance their narrow, self-serving political agendas.
In order to realise the tasks of the current phase of the national democratic revolution, we must rise above our petty differences and defend the cohesion and unity of the ANC with everything we have. The levels at which these prophets of doom have stooped to rubbish the ANC demonstrates their level of desperation which can only be countered by maximum unity in our structures. We therefore call upon every member of the ANC Youth League and the ANC to rise in defence of our revolution and to preserve the ANC legacy for generations to come.
The national democratic revolution (NDR) is about the creation of a truly non-racial, non-sexist and emancipated society at peace with itself. The democratic breakthrough of 1994 ushered in a democratic state founded on the sweat and blood of those who sustained the liberation struggle. The ANC's Strategy and Tactics adopted at the 52nd National Congress articulates the main thrust of the NDR as "the liberation of Africans in particular and Blacks in general from political and socio-economic bondage. It means uplifting the quality of life of all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African and female. At the same time it has the effect of liberating the white community from the false ideology of racial superiority and the insecurity attached to oppressing others. The hierarchy of disadvantage suffered under apartheid will naturally inform the magnitude of impact of the programmes of change and the attention paid particularly to those who occupied the lowest rungs on the apartheid soci al ladder."
Perhaps it is time we took the task upon ourselves to educate the political imbeciles who believe that because they have unfettered access to the media they are opinion-makers. They deliberately rubbish and distort the NDR and what the ANC stands for in or der to achieve their narrow political ends. Taking cue from these self-proclaimed experts on our movement, media practitioners have not hesitated to echo their hollow and naïve perspective of the NDR. Their trivialization of our revolution must be cause fo r concern as it either means they do not share our sentiment on the creation of the society envisioned by the NDR or they truly do not understand what the ANC stands for.
The last few weeks we watched a handful of ANC members-turned-dissidents setting the stage for what is undoubtedly the most idiotic political performance ever seen in this country. What makes their dramatic performance more amazing is the shallowness of their approach based on the belief that the masses will believe them when they claim that the ANC has lost its soul post Polokwane. The Polokwane conference was held a mere ten months ago, and any rot in the ANC would have accumulated over a number of years. Ironically some of these dissidents were among the highest ranking officials of the ANC for more than 10 years.
Surely the rot they allege has enveloped the ANC would have settled in on their watch. Are we then to believe that the rot that was settling in over the last ten years was good, and since there was a change of guard in Polokwane it suddenly turned bad? These people must not undermine our intelligence with their naked lies, and desperate attempts to secure leadership roles by hook or by crook. If they are to present themselves to the nation as messiahs and saviours from an ANC that is allegedly drunk with power, the least they can do is to tell the truth and take the nation into confidence.
It is no fallacy that the Polokwane conference was a watershed in ANC history and sought to reinstate the timeless traditions that have been eroded over the years. The gradual weakening of structures in the movement under the pretext of modernisation continued unabated over the years, notwithstanding the rejection of this notion by the National General Council in 2005 in Tshwane.
What came to pass in Polokwane was a culmination of the sentiment that was expressed by the membership of the ANC at the 2005 NGC when they decried the detachment of the ANC from its mass base and the perceived aloofness of its leadership. It is precisely for that reason that the 52nd National Conference in Polokwane, in dealing with organisational renewal unambiguously affirmed
* "That the ANC was established essentially to serve the people. Thus, the task of all ANC members is to serve the people loyally and selflessly, without expectation of material reward or personal gain.
* That the primary task of the ANC remains the mobilisation of all the classes and strata that objectively stand to benefit from the cause of social change. Thus, Strategy and Tactics 2007 elaborates this role as seeking to mobilise all South Africans to c ontribute to the ongoing transformation of our country, in the process fostering responsibility for our common destiny among all citizens of South Africa, black and white."
If we are to believe that the outcomes of Polokwane was an ANC that is a shadow of its former self, which merely pays lip service to the ideals of the Freedom Charter, then the resolutions of the 52nd National Conference are not worth the paper they are written on. But we all know that Conference resolutions constitute the mandate of the elected leadership and craft the roadmap the ANC is expected to follow until its next elective conference. More importantly, the ANC constitution allows its members to review the performance of the leadership through a mid-term review that is undertaken at the NGC.
These provisions in the ANC constitution underline the supremacy of the branch in determining the direction of the movement. If the membership is unhappy with the manner in which the leadership leads the organisation, then the leadership is voted out of office. This practice constitutes the very basis of democracy and anything to the contrary is nothing short of vulgarisation of democratic practice.
The spectacle that continues to unravel in our country is serious cause for concern. A crop of leadership has emerged from among our ranks, whose allegiance is not to democracy or the rule of law, but to a culture of entitlement to leadership roles and positions. Because they believe they are entitled to lead and to occupy leadership positions, they are not prepared to accept outcomes of democratic processes that do not favour them. They would rather shamelessly drag the entire nation to the abyss of anarchy in pursuit of their narrow self-serving interests.
Their actions constitute a betrayal of everything the ANC stands for and an insult to the liberation struggle and our hard-won democracy for which many lost their lives. If we as a nation tolerate such conduct, we run the risk of breeding a monster that will take our country to a civil war, because of those who will not accept results of democratic elections. These people are not deserving of an ANC membership card and must be expelled. We will not allow dissidents to use ANC structures to sow discord and divisions and we will deal with them harshly if they choose to play dirty. There is no doubt that they pose no threat to the ANC hegemony and have actually done us a favour by walking away.
Voting Age
Our campaign for the lowering of the voting age to 16 continues. We have made our case at Polokwane that the primary point of departure in engaging in governance is the deepening of our democracy and expanding the franchise to young people of 16 years. In our country, we have lowered the age of consent for sexual intercourse to 16 years. This is a serious and important responsibility that should not be taken lightly. When our Parliament applied itself in passing the law that legalised this age of consent, t hey seriously considered the implications and meaning of granting such a massive responsibility to young people of 16 years.
Indeed, they arrived at a conclusion that at 16, our youth have achieved a level of maturity where they can start taking responsibility for their lives. Similarly, our laws limit child labour to 15 years, thus recognising that those of 16 years of age and above have assumed sufficient level of maturity to be classified as adults capable of being employed. Our call for the lowering of the voting age to 16 is not an arbitrary one, but one based on sound principle and recognition that young people are the custodians of the future. In the same vein, what we are advocating is not unheard of, but a practice that has found expression around t he world. The Netherlands, Nicaragua, Cuba and Isle of Man have their voting age at 16, while Slovenia and Croatia require that 16-year olds must be employed to vote. Similarly, certain states in Germany and Austria allow 16-year olds to vote in municipal elections.
Youth Development
As a political home to South Africa's youth, youth development remains on top of our agenda and we continue to engage rigorously on processes that are aimed at improving the lives of our youth. We have consistently argued that youth development is not a stand-alone imperative that can be advanced by a single government department, but an integral part of everything we do as society. Our interventions must internalise this view and recognise the need for a holistic and seamlessly integrated approach. The 22n d National Congress of the Youth League at Nasrec reviewed our interventions on youth development and arrived at a conclusion that such interventions were fragmented and did not achieve the intended objectives.
A resolution was then carried for the establishment of a Youth Development Agency which will drive the integration of youth development initiatives across the public and private sectors and across spheres of government. This resolution was affirmed by the ANC's NGC in 2005 and further given impetus b y the Polokwane resolution that the new approach and its accompanying institutional mechanisms must see the light of the day by December 2008.
The path may have been long, but we finally have a bill before Parliament that seeks to make this resolution a reality. The National Youth Development Agency will emerge out of the merger of Umsobomvu Youth Fund and the National Youth Commission and will have a much broader and clearly defined mandate to advance youth development in a meaningful way. This Agency will , through Parliament, be able to hold both government and the private sector accountable for advancing youth development. We therefore call on our structures to support this process and participate en masse in the public hearings that will be held on the B ill.
Elections
In 2009, South Africans will, once again, be called upon to vote for a government of their choice. Elections 2009 presents us with an opportunity to mobilise our people behind a common vision and re-affirm the ANC's commitment to the realisation of a vision for a better life for all. There is no doubt that over the last 14 years, we have made significant strides and achieved much. These successes must be showcased as evidence that the ANC remains the only party that has both the capacity and the political w ill to deliver a better life to all our people.
Young people must be at the forefront of our election campaign and must put paid to the notion that our youth is apathetic and has no interest in politics. Those who go around mobilising our people against exercising their democratic right to vote must not be given time of the day. The right to vote is sacrosanct and every South African must ensure that never again shall any citizen be denied this right. South Africa's youth must therefore respond with enthusiasm to the voter registration process which will commence during the weekend of 8-9 November 2008. Our branches must ensure that all our members are registered voters and that they are able to cast their votes on election day.
Education remains central in our agenda for youth empowerment. Our call for free and compulsory education is premised on the principle that no child must be deprived of education. In the new year, we will intensify our back to school campaign to ensure that no child is left outside the schooling system. As we approach year-end, we must wish all our matriculants well as they sit to write their year-end exams and the first exam on the outcomes based education. May your hard work throughout the year yield the desired results. We wish you good luck.
In conclusion, during the past week we achieved a worthy milestone when Parliament passed the bills that effectively close the chapter on the scorpions and raise the curtain on a new entity. The milestone is not so much about the dissolution of the scorpions, but the fact that our government has taken a bold step in advancing the fight against organised crime and corruption. The new unit will be bigger and better resourced than the scorpions and will be fully integrated in the country's crime combating apparatus, drawing on the expertise and experience of the SAPS crime intelligence unit and other policing units with the SAPS. The ANC undertook to consolidate and strengthen the fight against organised crime and corruption, and the establishment of this unit is one of the measures being put in place in pursuit of that objective.
Amandla!!
Issued by the ANC Youth League
