President Jacob Zuma will soon discover, if he has not already done so, that it is far easier to keep up with Chomee’s dance moves than to deal decisively with the issues that irk the young people of this country who are increasingly rallying behind Julius Malema.
For a man of his age, the 69-year-old Zuma has done very well in matching the agility of Chomee, the kwaito artist.
This was in evidence as recently as last month during the ANC’s victory bash outside its headquarters in the Joburg CBD to celebrate success in the local government election.
But the most difficult dance move that Zuma has yet to execute – the one that matters most for his political survival, his legacy and most importantly, for the future of South Africa – is pushing through the political minefield of the ANC-Cosatu-SACP alliance a coherent strategy for youth development.
Millions of young people, who are overwhelmingly black, are outside looking in on the education system and the world of work.
They despair and are angry at not having a stake in the socio-economic present and future of South Africa. It is this seam of despair and anger that Malema has mined successfully, perhaps to feather his own political and financial nest (the ANC is a great finishing school for using public office for self-enrichment), or he is genuinely agitating for youth issues to be addressed.
Whatever Malema’s motivation is, young people are rallying behind him. Take Gugulakhe Motshani, a third-year BA (Education) student at the Mthatha campus of Walter Sisulu University. He came to Midrand last week to ensure that Malema got another term of office. Why? “He’s vocal,” he said.
In short, Malema’s is the only voice that young people hear articulating their anger and aspirations. When it comes to youth issues, his is the only voice that nags, pesters and bites. Young people – the outsiders – hang their hopes on that voice.
Motshani’s biography illustrates the problem of young people in South Africa. Although better off than most, he spent nine years after passing matric in the wilderness – working in a fastfood outlet, as a petrol attendant, as a temporary employee in a furnisher retail outlet, and as a taxi driver.
Tucked away in Ntafufu, a township in Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape, Motshani says he did not know of the National Student Financial Assistance Scheme (NSFAS). Nor did he get any career guidance during his last years in high school.
Nothing much has changed.
“When we opened this year, many students did not have IDs or matric results, and had not even applied for admission; they just showed up,” says Motshani, who wants to start a career guidance project this year for high school students.
Motshani’s education lights came on when his taxi was being hired by teachers who were going to graduation parties.
As he sat through the proceedings, he was inspired to enrol at university to train as a teacher.
He is due to complete his studies next year – the first in his family to graduate – but he is not sure what the future holds. His degree will qualify him to teach in a high school, but he is not sure he will get a post.
“If high schools don’t hire, I will have to apply for a junior teaching post (but) that’s not what I am training to do,” says Motshani.
The biggest mistake the ANC government has ever made, he says, was to shut down teacher training colleges, of which there used to be three in the Eastern Pondoland region, under which Lusikisiki falls.
He had five siblings; two have died. His younger brother used to work on the mines but resigned in search of greener pastures.
After completing a six-month training paramedics programme, he is still looking for a job.
For the 28-year-old Motshani, there are four issues that the government must address: the funding of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), ownership of the mines, education and unemployment.
He is confident that with sufficient funding the NYDA can come up with solutions to most of the challenges facing the youth. Currently the NYDA exists in the cities; it needs to have representation all in districts and municipalities as well as have ward councillors on NYDA committees in the wards.
On unemployment? “We (the black youth) don’t have skills. When you apply with a matric certificate, they (potential employers) say you don’t have experience. Where do we get experience from?”
He is confident that Malema can make a difference. “He can talk. Elders in government must feel the pressure. Education is paramount,” says Motshani.
That is why the best political investment Zuma can ever make in dealing with “the Malema problem” is to come up with a youth development strategy and, most importantly, implement it as if his life depended on it.
Hauling Malema before disciplinary committees, or seeking to unseat him by bribing ANC Youth League members (as Malema has alleged), merely serves to increase Malema’s stature among his followers.
Yes, Malema has built an umbilical chord between his political career and youth issues, but it is a chord that can be cut.
Failure to differentiate between the proverbial baby and the bath water risks blinding ANC leaders to the reality of despair among young people.
On paper, Zuma’s task looks easy. The solution is to get young people into work, to stay at school longer, or put them through training institutions.
But that’s not all a comprehensive and coherent youth development strategy must do.
It must also iron out the inherent contradictions in family policy, education and health policy, labour market policies, integration or social policy – all of which are implicitly about youth development.
If there is to be policy that addresses a young person’s development as a whole, all these policy strands must be integrated into an inter-sectoral youth policy to provide a coherent framework for political action.
The National Planning Commission has already placed a marker for the Zuma administration.
In its Diagnostic Review published two weeks ago, the commission said that all successful countries have what is called a “future orientation”.
“Their policy is to take decisions that lead to long-term benefits, as opposed to short-run solutions that could have negative effects later on.
“Countries with a future orientation generally spend more on education and value it more in communities and households.
“In successful societies governments have a clear sense of what they want to achieve, clear guidelines on how to structure relationships with their social partners, and an equally clear sense of the public interest actions they expect from these actors,” the commission said.
Zuma does not have to reinvent the youth development policy wheel. Youth development is a challenge all countries are grappling with.
In South Africa and everywhere else in the world, youth unemployment is concentrated among the least educated.
The only differences are contextual, meaning that whatever solutions South Africa borrows from other countries must be adjusted for this country’s different social and economic conditions.
In South Africa, as is the case in other parts of the world, youth policy must, in the words of Dr Claudia Lûcking-Michel, be conceived as a protective and supportive policy to facilitate and accompany the young person’s growth into adulthood.
Its starting points are the various life situations of young people, and it tries to influence the design of the young person’s living conditions.
Lûcking-Michel is the former chair of the German Federal Advisory Committee on Youth, a body that advises the German government on child and youth services.
“A youth policy, which wants to live up to today’s requirements for the political design of the life situation of young people, must integrate several dimensions simultaneously.
“It must keep an eye on the tensions between the orientations for the future and the present, and it must be comprehensively designed so that it will be in a position to consider and to address the high level of differentiation in youth-specific interests, needs and concerns.
“A third dimension, the operative dimension, includes considerations how and in which structures this conceptual consistency can be translated into political action,” added Lûcking-Michel.
And translating policies into reality has proved to be the biggest stumbling block to socio-economic progress in South Africa, which is why in the first place Malema has found such a rich vein of anger and despair to mine.
As he said in his closing speech at the ANC Youth League’s 24th annual congress on Sunday: “You only vote for those who speak to your aspirations.”
Zuma has succeeded in keeping up with the youth by joining them on the dance floor.
He now needs to demonstrate, with a sense of urgency, that he is in tune with their aspirations.