ANCYL+speaks+out+on+ANC+succession,+Fikile+Mbalula,+City+Press

City Press, Johannesburg, 19/08/2006 18:08 - (SA)
=ANCYL speaks out on ANC succession debate=


 * FIKILE MBALULA**

PROFESSOR Barney Pityana raises some fundamental observations about our democracy and gives his analysis of the challenges facing the ANC and country in his JD Baqwa Memorial Lecture.

But his analysis of what he terms "controversies that are threatening the very soul of the ruling party", is rather extreme and sets the stage for a thinly veiled attack on the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and Young Communist League. The vitriol he directs at the ANCYL is particularly telling, and his characterisation of its leaders as zealots, exposes the shortsightedness of his analysis.

We have never suggested that a leader is solely determined by "the amount of uncritical popular support he is able to garner" as suggested by Pityana.

We hold a firm view that while a leader may not be everything to all people, he must espouse the collective value system of society and must be a unifying figure who is able to reach out to the people and resonate with them. Characterising the ANC succession debates as being driven purely by populist tendencies is rather naive.

In the same vein, we can never allow our leaders to be imposed on us by the media or even the intelligentsia because they fit their romantic notion of a leader. The people themselves will determine who their leaders are.

The underlying strand in Pityana's reasoning suggests that our principled support for the ANC deputy president has been nothing more than a clutter of noise devoid of any logic and which seeks to undermine the very freedoms we struggled for.

This is not only myopic, but a line of thinking that itself seeks to drown out dissenting views and cultivate a sycophantic society that never questions the "wisdom" of those who have afforded themselves the status of being the custodians of society's intelligence.

We are often cautioned against blindly following those who "seek to dream our future for us".

Yet, as young people we are not allowed the space and opportunity to dream our own future by the same people who loudly caution us. We have declared in the past, and we continue to declare, that never again shall others determine our own future. We are the custodians of our own future and will craft the future of the society we want to live in.

In a fashion reminiscent of the apartheid //"swart gevaar"//, we are now being cautioned against "youth //gevaar//" where society, Pityana says, will be plunged into a generation of "violent, cold and mean young men, who are no longer capable of truly loving, of tenderness towards the opposite sex and of expressing passion, love and commitment".

This suggests that our youth are not capable of crafting a future society that is emancipated, prosperous, at peace with itself and driven by a value system that makes ours a truly progressive nation.

The current debate on matters of leadership within and outside the ANC can only strengthen our nation and improve the quality of our engagements.

We cannot be trapped in the past where people were afraid to speak up lest they be victimised or attacked. Public engagement should never be mistaken for attempts to trample and drown out dissenting voices. Those who choose to remain silent do so at their peril and have given up their constitutional right to fully participate in public discourse.

Let us then not find excuses where none exist when we do not have choruses following our tunes.

//**
 * //Mbalula is the ANCYL president
 * From: http://www.news24.com/City_Press/Columnists/0,,186-1695_1985548,00.html**

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