SA+Youth+and+the+Role+of+the+YCL+in+The+NDR

Young Communist League, Discussion Documentto the National Policy and Strategy Conference

 * 11-14 August, 2005, Makopane, Limpopo Province**

=The Character of South African Youth and the Role of the YCL in The NDR: Towards a YCL Analysis=


 * Brief Historical Sketch**

The advent of colonialism capitalism and apartheid in South Africa has subjected young people to adverse political, social, cultural and economic conditions which define their existence: capitalist exploitation, national oppression, gender oppression and patriarchy, alienation and ideological domination by the bourgeoisie (through culture, education, media and religion).

Even though young people have always been a significant social strata of South African society, they have been overlooked and controlled by governments that had little intention of advancing their well-being. They experienced poor housing conditions, restricted and racially segregated access to education, training and employment opportunities, high levels of crime and violence and a general disintegration of social networks and communities. The apartheid government did not develop any specific policies or programmes to address the equal development of all young women and men.

However, from the earliest decades of the last century young people have asserted themselves by forming youth organisations, protesting against injustices, fighting for a people’s education and better living conditions. Young people actively participated in the national liberation struggle.

Youth Leaguers of the 1940s and 1950s were part of the political struggles in the ANC, of which our Party played no small part, which resulted in the revolutionising of the ANC. It was also from the youth that the ANC drew significant layers of its MK soldiers. The ANC Youth Section in exile played a critical role in mobilising and conscientising international youth and students about apartheid.

Inside South Africa, the militant and revolutionary youth of the late 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s played a very significant role in the intensification of the anti-apartheid struggle internally: right from SASO through to SASM, COSAS, AZASO/SANSCO, NUSAS and SAYCO.

As the old apartheid order was being destroyed, just as it deserved, and as the transition to a post-apartheid democratic order was clearly irreversible, key issues and characteristics which South African youth grappled with were:


 * levels of political mobilisation of young people
 * the growth of the youth development discourse
 * the institutionalisation of youth development in quasi-government structures post-1994
 * the reorientation of the ANCYL – particularly away from being a militant organisation of young people into an organisation perhaps more overtly occupied with policy, lobbying, internal ANC struggles and alliance tensions
 * the weakening of the progressive youth sector
 * the development of significant trends in youth culture, identity and expression
 * the transformation of education without strong, consistent mass-based struggles from the progressive youth sector

This attempt to characterise the youth movement within the historical development of SA capitalist political economy needs to be taken forward by looking at what is the class structure of the post-apartheid South Africa? A lot has happened in the last ten years in the capitalist structure through Affirmative Action, BEE, etc. that might have changed, though not significantly, the character of the youth and its organisations. It is fine that we have done the analysis of the class structure of the working class in the post-Apartheid SA. If we lay bare the post-apartheid class structure we will be in a position to draw clear strategic and tactical battle lines. We will know where we stand in relation to the black and white middle class, peasantry, etc.

The concept of youth is a dynamic social construct which recognises that the youth is not a class but a transient social stratum growing up from being children into being adults. The transition from childhood to adulthood is a time in life when most people are going through dramatic changes. Whilst there might be people who fall outside a defined age range they may experience similar circumstances. Whilst this transition period is characterised by youthful energy, enthusiasm, ambition, creativity and promise, it can also be influenced by uncertainty, fear and alienation with the development society.
 * Young People as a social stratum in a post-apartheid, capitalist and patriarchal South Africa**

Currently, various key organisations and state and multi-national institutions define the age range of youth differently:


 * The National Youth Commission Act (1996) defines and refers to young people as all those between the ages of 14 and 35;
 * The National Youth Development Policy Framework defines young people as all those between the ages 15 and 28;
 * The United Nations has for statistical purposes defined youth as being between the ages of 15 and 24 years and acknowledges that, “the meaning of the term youth varied in different societies around the world and that definitions of youth had changed continuously in response to fluctuating political, economic and socio-cultural circumstances”;
 * The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) applies to children and young people aged 0 – 18;
 * 18 is the legal age definition in South Africa whilst the law recognises the age of consent to heterosexual sex as 16 and for homosexual male sex as 19;
 * The White Paper for Social Welfare defines youth as all those between the ages of 16 and 30;
 * Correctional Services refers to young offenders as all those in the age range 14 to 25;
 * The National Health Policy Guidelines focus on the adolescent and youth as all those between 10 and 24;
 * The ANCYL uses 14-35 for its age range

Given these differences in approach and recognising that the term “youth” and “youth sector” has a range of meanings and connotations within the South African historical, social, cultural and political context, it is imperative that the YCL builds its own clarity on this issue.

Naturally, the youth is energetic, adventurous, playful, inquisitive, active, often impatient with change, full of expression, exploratory, full of invaluable potential, a mirror of and into society, malleable, suppliant,

The transition from childhood into adulthood of this diverse age group defined as the youth is shaped and informed by the existing social structure of our society: a post-apartheid, still capitalist and patriarchal South Africa still visibly and painfully bearing the scars of the cruel and inter-twined legacies of colonialism, capitalism, apartheid and patriarchy.

The term “youth” has a range of different meanings and connotations within the South African historical, social, economic, cultural and political context. Since the youth uprising of 1976 and the concurrent mobilisation of young women and men against apartheid, the term “youth” represented a potent and important element of the political struggle. Post-1994, many observers have described youth as apolitical, born-frees, care-free, consumerist, materialistic, whilst others continue to perpetuate the social construct that the youth is a segment of the population seen as violent, unruly, undisciplined and underdeveloped.

Sociologists would tell us that youth is not homogeneous. They would say that not all young people are the same, some are at school or training institutions, others are not; some are employed, others are not; there are young women in rural and urban environments, others live in informal settlements and peri-urban environments; some live with their parents, some do not; some are themselves parents, including single mothers; some are disabled whilst others have been the victims of abuse or maltreatment. These sociological observations are all correct but for the YCL the basis for youth heterogeneity is the cruel and inter-twined legacies of colonialism, capitalism, apartheid and gender oppression affect all young people. The national dimension of this legacy means that young black people continue to bear the brunt of apartheid and capitalism: the majority of young people who drop out of the education system are black. The class dimension of this legacy means that working class and rural youth continue being marginalised from the mainstream of the economy whilst the gender dimension is realised through teenage pregnancy, disproportionate impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on young women, the role of young women in unpaid labour, and so on.

In other words, the circumstances of young people are shaped and formed by challenges prevalent from previous generations: past generations had to defeat apartheid; today’s generations have to build a new South Africa, deepen the National Democratic Revolution, struggle for, build and achieve socialism; and to take forward the struggle against gender oppression and for the transformation of gender relations. Today’s youth is a generation that is starting to work under the new conditions of constructing a post-apartheid South Africa whereas past generations worked under the old order. Lenin puts it this way //“The generation of people who are now at fifty cannot expect to see a communist society. This generation will gone before then. But the generation of those who are now fifteen will see a communist society, and will itself build this society.”//

In broad outline, key issues that define circumstances of South African youth and that they have to address in discharging their historical task are:


 * Unemployment and exclusion from the economy as a result of the nature of capitalism
 * The HIV/AIDS pandemic
 * Sexuality
 * Health
 * Access to social services
 * Education
 * Recreation
 * Cultural Identity and Expression
 * Sexism and gender oppression
 * Nation-building and racism
 * Religion

And thus the opening of the issues and discussion questions on these issues as done below in order to start a YCL analysis of the character of South African youth, its issues, interests, fears, circumstances, etc.

Some pointers in terms of the socio-economic status of young people today:
 * Youth in the Economy**


 * Census 1996 recorded that youth (those aged 15 to 28) comprise about 37% of the total population – 16 million people;
 * In 2001, 70% of the people in the poorest quintile are below the age of 35;
 * Youth comprise about 70% of the unemployed, 46% of the working population and 33% of the self- employed. By 2001, the official unemployment figure on the expanded definition of the unemployed (i.e. including those who have given up looking for work) was 6,96 million, or 37 per cent of the potentially economically active. The unemployment challenge is deepened by the fact that the economically active population is growing by half-a-million each year. Clearly, unemployment strikes at young people with particular severity. There were 2,5 million unemployed young people in 1999, (1,4 million young women, and slightly fewer than 1,1 million young men);
 * Most of the unemployed youth live in households with a monthly income of less than R800 a month. Youth unemployment is highest in the 25-29 age group. The numbers of unemployed young women is more than that of unemployed young men.
 * The economic participation of youth differs by age, race, gender, location and education. African youth with primary and less than secondary education tend to be in the majority among the economically inactive population. The economic participation of African youth is low between the ages of 16 and 19, increases to a maximum at the ages of 20 to 25, and declines as age approaches 25 to 34. The economic participation of white youth increases with age but tends to decline for the 25 to 34 year age group. Female youth predominate among the economically inactive population at ages below 20 years of age8
 * In 2001, 67% of the self-employed earning less than the Supplemental Living Level were aged between 15 and 24, the majority of whom were young women living in rural areas.
 * Whilst about 50% of the population is rural, rural areas contain 72% of those living in poverty. In 2001 in rural areas, more than 80% of the population have no access to piped water and sanitation, and 74% had to fetch water on a daily basis. This essentially means that youth in rural areas are worse off than youth in urban areas.

Even though the youth development discourse and agenda are relatively well-established, there is still no demonstrable impact of the youth development framework and institutions on the socio-economic conditions of young people.

As a result, the above statistics are still relevant coupled with increasing alienation and marginalisation of young people (particularly those young people in rural areas, informal sector of the economy, townships, informal settlements and inner cities, homeless youth, unemployed, youth in prisons, youth involved in crime and in the criminal justice system and other categories of youth such as immigrant youth and lesbian and gay youth).

But what does this statistics mean? The fostering of a post-apartheid capitalist political economy has been characterised by a massive restructuring of the working class. In the decade before the 1994 democratic breakthrough, significant changes were beginning to occur within the working class, and since 1994 the trends have continued. The most serious and dramatic tendency has been the job-loss blood-bath in the "formal" sector of the economy. These and other developments have resulted in a working class that is stratified into the following five broad categories:


 * Employed workers in core, mainly ‘full-time’, semi-skilled and skilled jobs in the major sectors of our economy (mining, manufacturing, the public service, parastatal and commercial sectors) into which skilled youth are recruited.
 * The ‘peripheralised’ working class, principally made up of casual and contract labour in the major sectors of our economy, though concentrated in retail and textile sectors, with the mining sector increasingly employing contract labour. This stratum is on the periphery of the core of the working class. Women and young workers comprise a significant core of this section of the working class.
 * A rightless section of the working class, located mainly in the countryside as farm-workers, and as domestic workers (mainly women) in the urban areas. There are 1 million farm-workers who are unorganised, and there is no organisation of domestic workers of any significance. Child labour is a common practice taking away many young people from education.
 * An informalised working class found in the streets of our major cities, on the sides of the major highways and around tourist centres. This stratum includes the majority of taxi drivers, as well as thousands who are involved in some kind of self-employed activity, living from-hand-to-mouth. Again, young people are to be found in the ranks of this section of the working class.
 * Unemployed workers, who cannot find jobs, some coming in and out of the informal sector and others caught in a deep cycle of structural unemployment, largely concentrated in the periphery of our urban areas, in informal settlements subject to shacklords who carry out all forms of extortion, as well as in the former bantustan areas under the rule of chiefs. They constitute a "reserve" army of labour, but the majority of these workers are likely to be permanently reserved in the light of growing joblessness and absence of other economic opportunities. It is this section of the working class that is forced to live a parasitic type of a relationship to the main urban economies of our country, thus being highly vulnerable to criminality and all other forms of social ills of society. Many young people form a part of this section of the working class.

This stratification of the working class could potentially weaken the capacity of the working class to struggle and advance its interests. The stratification could lay the basis for disintegration of social organisation as more and more workers focus on survival. This requires serious strategising, debate and developing new forms of working class organisation (advice centres, organising home workers, organising informal sector workers, organising young workers, etc.). It is also noteworthy that many of the new social movements have been mobilising some of the marginalised sections of the working class identified above. The YCL, led by and working with the Party, needs to pay attention to how these social movements are harnessed towards a political line in line with the Party’s programme. Some of these movements have also emerged because of our movements’ own weaknesses and have raised correct working class demands and mobilised these sections of the working class into action.

Young people are at risk from a broad range of health problems. This includes the risk of physical and psychological trauma resulting from sexual abuse, gender-based violence, and other forms of physical violence and accidents. Other health needs are sexual and reproductive health disorders, which include sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancies and pregnancy related complications and tuberculosis. For example, by age of 19 years, 35% of all teenagers have been pregnant or had a child. It is estimated that in 1999, about 11% of terminations of pregnancy were on women under 18 years of age.
 * Health, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and Access to Social Services**

The YCL needs to study very carefully the First South African National Youth Risk Behaviour Survey released on 9 December 2003.

Many young people are infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and the impact on young people is already huge and devastating:


 * Young South Africans have sex at a young age given the lack of recreation, the absence sexuality education and socio-economic depression;
 * The lack of privacy for young people (due to poor housing, lack of recreational space, the fact that sex is still a taboo subject, ) means unsafe sex and thus increasing the risk of exposure to unwanted pregnancies, STDs and HIV/AIDS;
 * The lack of sex education in the education system, health system and society at large also increases the risk of STDs and exposure to unsafe sex;
 * Poor access to information and services means no counselling, testing, medication and support;
 * The public health system does not have dedicated HIV/AIDS programmes focusing on young people;
 * The death of parents increases the burden of unpaid labour on many young people, in particular young women;
 * Because of their lower social and economic status, and because of physiological factors, many young women are still not able to negotiate safe sex and even those who can depend on male power given the inaccessibility and un-affordability of female condoms;
 * The economic impact is disastrous: parents lose income as they become more sicker, the social wage and social security system cannot cope with increasing numbers of those who need social support, the sick need care and financial resources are required for this care.

Prior to the 1994 democratic breakthrough, the South African education system reflected all the gross inequalities common to under-developed capitalist countries and was still apartheid era education:
 * Education**


 * Young adults tend to continue with their school education way beyond the age of 16 years. For example, 44.7% of those aged 20 years in 1999 were still at school. This reflects, among other things, relatively high repetition rates in the pre-2000 period where repeaters were taken out of the education system4;
 * Since 1994 Matric results have increased significantly at an average of 65%, with most young and black students achieving in areas such as Maths and Science. This has however, been overridden with controversies around the quality of Matric Examinations, and the readiness of such young people to assume work or university studies.
 * Besides the point above, more and more young people drop-out from Primary or High Schools precisely because of social problems. As the YCL, we had identified HIV/AIDS, unemployment and lack of an income as the casue. There are other various social factors which serve as a form of exclusion, which includes lack of school fees, abuse, child labour in both the formalised and informalised sections of society.
 * Of those aged 20 years and older, 17.5% of African women and 13.2% of African men had no schooling, as against 0,3% of white women and 0,2% of white men. While 29,1% of white women and 33,9% of white men in this age group had received a tertiary education, as against 5,5% of African women and 5,2% of African men5; and
 * The majority of learners in technical colleges are youth, with 73% in the age group 15-24 years old. The proportion of those attending a university or technikon among those aged 18 to 30 years is, however, relatively low. For example, among those aged 22 years, 3,0% were attending university, 2.5% technikon, and 2.9% other educational institutions such as a college.

In addition to these statistics, a plethora of challenges still need to be addressed in the education sector:


 * safety at schools
 * content of curriculum development
 * objectives of education in the production and reproduction of society
 * skewed distribution of resources as a result of apartheid and a restrictive macro-economic framework
 * the reactionary nature and conduct of SGBs in mainly formerly white schools
 * economic barriers to education (school fees, uniforms, cost of transport, prices of stationery,
 * weakening of SRCs and their roles in education transformation
 * insufficient funding of the higher education sector leading to a small number of young people having an opportunity to tertiary education
 * transformation of higher education in the absence of working class organisation, programmes and struggles in this area
 * curriculum content in higher education influenced by the interests of capital
 * the growth of private education
 * under-resourcing of institutions for further education and training and ABET institutions
 * domination of skills development by the interests of capital

Minority youth have obviously become the more withdrawn, conservative and others assuming a more liberal stance of various socio-economic issues. There is an appreciation of the transformation agenda, with some minority youth seeking to enjoin themselves into the nation-building project, and actually denouncing Apartgeid and participating in the national reconciliation and reconstruction project. This section of the youth do not severely experience the hardships that their fellow black counterparts do. Most of them being born into opulence and wealth, and are the recipients of the benefits of the exclusion brought about by Apartheid and the tricameral parliament.
 * Minority Youth**

Most young Indian, Coloured and White youth see affirmative action and black economic empowerment as a Apartheid for the blacks, and view it with scepticism in that they suffer for the sins of their forefathers. The witting or unwitting creation of certain institutions of higher learning as ‘white zones’, with a few layer of the emergent black bourgeoisie students being the recipients of thus, hampers the process and intention of nation-building, cultural diversity and inter-racial exchange and appreciation. This is not as a result of a political system, but an economic system that sought that is legitimised by strong and firm liberal and capitalist values enshrined in our constitution, and thefore, to challenge this will be seen as anti-constitution. The challenge on free education will in the long run also deal with these problems.

Given that the dominant ideology in society is that of the ruling class and that this ruling hegemony is mainly won through the institutions of education, culture, the media and religion, it is important that we understand how South African youth relates to culture and religion. We need to base this on our analysis of the political economy of culture and religion in contemporary South Africa.
 * Youth, Culture and Religion**

In essence, the key institutions of ruling class hegemony teach our youth to aspire for a value system of individualism, consumerism, being materialistic, success measured in terms of individual professional careers with no regard to the rest of society, and the such. This ruling class hegemony on ideology could lay the basis for apathy, depoliticisation, exposure to neo-liberalism, and acceptance of capitalism by young people particularly in an era where the media is increasingly fostering the message that it is normal and acceptable for young people not to be interested in social change and politics.

But what about traditional culture and how it has mutated post-apartheid? The daughters of the Zulu King lead a project to educate young people about Zulu culture including the promotion of virgin inspection of young girls. The 21st National Congress of the ANCYL (April 2001, Bloemfontein) resolved to //“Utilise our cultural heritage … in nation-building, patriotism and reconciliation… Advocate for the utilisation of culture in building moral renewal among young people with a particular humility to the poor and struggle”//. This resolution can be interpreted and implemented in either progressive or reactionary ways. This same ANCYL Congress also concluded that //“It is urgent to preserve and promote our culture and heritage in order to keep, define and promote our identity and pride as a people…Our African culture and heritage is deteriorating at an untold magnitude”.// What is our definition of, and understanding of culture? What is progressive culture? What is our critique of the uncritical retreat to “culture” in the context of African Renaissance and also given that all South African cultures are essentially conservative? What is the role of traditional culture in youth life?

South African culture is also impacted on by capitalist globalisation, essentially imperialism. The impact of this is to threaten the culture, heritage and identity of nation-states whilst promoting a capitalist Western cultural identity and expression characterised by individualism, selfishness, ahead of those of a collective.

=**Youth and Politics**= The 1999 Reality Check Survey reported that only 10% of youth was involved in political organisations. Much public commentary has largely reinforced the view that young South Africans are not interested in formal politics and therefore are not political. Again, this is argued to be normal and acceptable in a normal liberal democracy. But is this correct?

The 1999 elections were marked by low levels of registration (48% compared with 80% amongst the general population) and voting (43% compared to 89% of registered voters) by young people between 18 and 20 years of age. This group is now between 23 and 25 years of age and forms a significant chunk of voting youth. 77% of the 20-30 year age group registered for the same election. This age group is now in the 25-35 year age group. Those in the current 18-25 year age group now were in the 8-13 year age group in 1994 and therefore have very little direct recollection of heightened youth political activity and the reality of defeating the apartheid political super-structure.

A research report by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE) in 2000 concluded that 1 in 10 young people belong to a political organisation but that this did not mean that youth is not politically aware. Instead, the report concluded that youth in 2000 was generally politically aware and engaged:


 * 4 in 10 young people had seen a copy of the new Constitution
 * 57% had heard about the Bill of Rights
 * Youth in general was more positive than negative about the performance of political institutions than older people
 * On the key issue of race relations and national unity, youth again showed more optimism than adults: 67% of youth agreed that although it will take time, SA will become a united nation.
 * A similar optimism and hope for improvements were recorded in youth assessment of the quality of life, the economy, education, crime and health care

Opinion polls also indicate that young people hold progressive views on controversial matters such as reproductive rights of women, capital punishment, homosexuality, etc. Other social trends – progressive elements involved youth and “ghetto” poetry, the very political and yet youthful Chimurenga magazine, assimilation of the spirit of African pride and renewal in youth sub-cultures - indicate new forms of political expression and identity by young people.

What would be the conclusions today given increasing unemployment and the deepening social, class and gender inequalities? Does this not explain the increasing social activism of young people which is in any case the most direct rebuttal of the myth that youth is apolitical? Besides, thousands of young people are active in various social struggles: the HIV/AIDS struggle, against women and child abuse, in youth development, for access to land, for employment, against privatisation, for access to basic services, and so on. In our own Party, in the ANC and in COSATU there is a significant layer of key cadres and activists being drawn from the advanced ranks of young people.

Internationally, it is interesting that increasing numbers of young people have been mobilised into action against globalisation, war, environmental degradation, etc. and in this way have become politically conscientised and mobilised. So clearly, the trend is actually not confirming that South African and world youth is being depoliticised. This does not automatically mean that young people are being won over to socialism. Perhaps what public commentary fails to understand maybe the reality that the state of the youth movement does not reflect the political nature of our youth. Perhaps, the youth movement has not understood the nuances, subtleties and sophistication of post-apartheid youth.

The appointment of the National Youth Commission in 1996, and later on the establishment of the Umsobomvu Youth Fund saw the presence of two major government institutions meant to advise and drive government’s approach towards youth development. Both these institutions have contributed into youth focused development within government institutions and have registered impact in areas related to:
 * Institutional Development Post 1994 and its Impact on Youth Development.**


 * Youth entrepreneurship and co-operatives through the programmes led by the Umsobomvu Youth Fund.
 * Policy interventions on various youth related matters, ranging from education, housing, finances, trade, health, safety and security and sports, arts and culture significantly led by the National Youth Commission.
 * The launch and implementation of the National Youth Service by both the NYC and the UYF. Both these organisations have received their fair share of criticism, some of which we share as the YCL. These includes the fact that:
 * The NYC has become irrelevant, and that it has not served the needs and interests of young people since its appointment. Those who argue in this fashion have qualified their opinions, even through demonstrations, by demanding the establishment of a Youth Ministry.
 * Some have argued that with all the millions that it manages, the National Youth Commission has basically become some form of employment creation for the ANC and its alliance partners for its youth.
 * There has been strong argument about the accessibility of the NYC and the UYF by young people, especially with the growing frustrations of unemployment and poverty, with young people believing that the lack of access to resources meant for their own development hampers their chances of breaking from the chains of poverty.
 * There has also been consistent arguments, especially from the YCL front, around the focus of the UYF on co-operatives.

There has been some suggestions that both the NYC and the UYF should merge and form one single organisation, which will serve as a Youth Development Agency and focus on youth related issues. The proposal neglects the fact that both these institutions have not been formed from a single basis and thought, and that their initial missions have always varied. As the YCL, we have also argued strongly that the constitutive legislation of the NYC limits it from executing various youth development agendas.

A revamped National Youth Commission, with more powers and responsibilities beyond its current advisory role is envisaged. This include an organisation that will:


 * Implement programmes that affects young people and touches on peer education, drug and alcohol abuse, HIV/AIDS education, care and focus on treatment, advise centres dealing with information on finding jobs, sports and recreation, career guidance and a much more focused National Youth Service.
 * Establish local youth development agencies which will run youth clubs focusing on culture, arts, sports, recreation, counselling, governance and capacity building for youth.
 * Research and provide information readily on government work which relates to youth development

There is also a huge presence of youth development institutions in civil society and largely represented by the South African Youth Council.

**Preliminary Conclusions: the role of the YCL in the NDR**
The transient nature of youth as a stratum has significant relevance for the deepening of the NDR and the struggle for socialism. As Lenin observed, it is the youth that will be faced with the actual task of creating a communist society. In our reality, it is the youth that will be faced with the actual task of building a new South Africa, deepening the NDR, struggling for, building and achieving socialism; and taking forward the struggle against gender oppression and for the transformation of gender relations.

Clearly, these socio-economic conditions as analysed above demonstrate that capitalism is currently deepening, rather than overcoming the many national, class and gender aspects of the apartheid legacy. Many young people may not understand what socialism is about but, objectively, the post-apartheid capitalist political economy lays the basis for the deep-seated and relatively spontaneous sympathy for socialism amongst many layers and advanced sections of young people. There is a fertile ground for socialist consciousness, ideas and propaganda. Linked to this fertile ground, is therefore the need for the YCL to ensure that the Party programme reaches out to and is increasingly owned by the widest possible range of young people.

Remarkably, there has been significant institutionalisation of the youth development post-1994. But it is not only youth development, but also popular struggles which have been institutionalised and held back. This does not mean we should not engage in these bourgeoisie institutions, but we need to analyse their impact of the working class mobilisation and organisation. For instance, in arguing that ‘the transformation of education’ has taken place without mass struggles from the progressive youth sector, there is an implicit or tacit understanding that SGBs, Councils, Senates, etc are the only sites of struggles, thus discarding mass mobilisation. Mass struggles by the working class are an important tool and tactic in the NDR particularly in this phase where assimilation into bourgeoisie institutions can misdirect our movement.

As a youth wing of the Party, the main task of the YCL in the NDR is to mobilise and organise young people for the completion of the tasks of the NDR and taking forward the struggle for socialism. The Strategic Perspectives of the YCL discussion document raises the point that working class leadership of the NDR can only be expressed through Party leadership of the alliance even in the current phase. What should be the form and content of working class leadership of the NDR?

In this current phase, the NDR has made several remarkable achievements, and few societies and governments can boast so many major transformational achievements within such a short time-span. However, notwithstanding these and many other major transformational programmes, the systemic inequalities and under-lying structural crises that we have inherited are proving to be extremely stubborn.

Race, class and gender continue to play a determining role in regard to poverty and inequality. South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world, and despite the ending of formal racial discrimination in 1994, racial inequality remains a dominant reality. However, as inequality between races diminishes marginally and as intra-race (within racial groups) inequality grows, increasingly it is class that is the most significant determining factor underpinning poverty and deepening inequality.

The economy is characterised by sluggish growth, continuing formal sector job losses; deepening poverty for many in the midst of persisting high inequality; disappointing levels of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI); significant capital outflows from domestic and foreign multinantionals; and vulnerability to speculative movements on currency and capital markets.

Notwithstanding the defeat of the apartheid state and many outstanding achievements by the progressive forces since 1994, fundamentally //the prevailing growth and accumulation path will not be able to resolve the systemic, structural crises of under-development that continue to beset our society.//

This sobering reality is partly the result of the burden of the past (entrenched racial, capitalist and patriarchal power), and partly the result of new dynamics and challenges that include – the massive restructuring of the working class, the exposure of South Africa to global capitalist instability and patterns of development and under-development, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Another aspect of our understanding of the NDR is the inter-relationship between the national, gender and class. National oppression, class exploitation and patriarchal domination are deeply entwined within the fabric of our society. Over many decades our Party has rooted its strategic approach to the struggle on an understanding of the deep linkages between national oppression and capitalist exploitation in South Africa.

The South African capitalist accumulation path has rested on the unspeakably harsh, triple oppression of the majority of women, perhaps in a more exaggerated and barbaric form than in almost any other society. Black women generally, and African women in particular, have played the central role in the reproduction of the working class – a working class that was “cheap” (for the capitalists), not just because it suffered direct coercion (colonial dispossession, pass laws, compounds, starvation wages), but also because the burden of its reproduction was carried by the unpaid labour of women. The triple oppression of black women (as workers, as blacks, and as women) forced them to bear the burden of care for the young, the unemployed, the old, the sick and disabled, and the vast reserve army of labour with the most pitiful resources.

From the foregoing, the YCL needs to define its strategy and tactics in taking forward its perspectives and tasks in the NDR. In its Political Programme, the Party has defined its main strategy and tactics on the NDR as being:


 * One: Premising any further qualitative breakthrough in the current phase of the NDR on a sustainable growth and development strategy has to address, as a central (and not peripheral) task, the progressive eradication of patriarchal domination in production and in the social reproduction of the conditions for production. The Party has argued that the progressive transformation of gendered power must be understood, theoretically and practically, as absolutely central to a growth and development strategy.
 * Strengthen the socialist paradigm in the context of the current political and ideological terrain including deepening and developing a consistent class analysis of the challenges we confront in regard to the national question. The Party must also actively engage with and help to develop a scientific and programmatic approach to the deep-seated challenges of our continent’s continued marginalisation, and under-development.
 * Struggle for socialism by building capacity for, momentum towards and elements of socialism in the here and now

The Party Programme states that to fulfil these challenges, the SACP needs to constantly, and without apology, build its own independent structures, capacity, programmes and analyses. We must reiterate the importance of a formation, within our National Liberation Movement, that is programmatically based on a commitment to socialism, and that is ideologically committed to approaching all challenges from a consistent working class perspective. But, at the same time, the SACP must understand itself to be no less “nationalist”, and no less “practical” than any other current within our NLM. Indeed, scientific socialism alone has the potential to:


 * inform a consistent and far-reaching progressive “nationalism”; and
 * develop strategies, tactics, policies and programmes that are really practical – in the sense that they will actually achieve the tasks of the NDR.

What does this mean for the YCL? But this question will not be answered by boardroom debates, they will be answered in the hard school of revolutionary practice. Further, our analysis and understanding of the character of South African youth still needs to be taken forward in the following respects:


 * What does South African youth do?
 * Young Women – where are they? What do they do? What is the impact of patriarchy on young women?
 * Township youth? Rural youth? Youth in big cities? Youth in small towns? Unemployed youth?

And thus the necessity of talking about the role and character of the YCL in the context of its role in the NDR and the struggle for socialism.


 * From: http://www.sacp.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=262&Itemid=107**