T Mbeki: Youth Day celebrations

16 June 2007

Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka,
Minister in the Presidency responsible for youth affairs, Essop Pahad,
Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Premier of the Eastern Cape province, Nosimo Balindlela,
Your Worship, Executive Mayor of the Buffalo City Municipality, Ntombentle
Peter,
National Youth Commission Chairperson, Nomi Nkondlo,
National and Provincial Youth Commissioners,
Youth leaders and our esteemed youth,
Members of the June 16th Foundation,
Leaders of our political parties and civil society formations,
Our religious and traditional leaders,
The distinguished national, provincial and national leaders and representatives
of our people,
Your Excellencies, Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished guests,
Comrades,
Fellow South Africans:

I would like to greet all our people who have gathered on this important day
in our national calendar the National Youth Day. On June 16, 1976, multitudes
of South African youth emerged from township school classrooms to confront a
brutal system of racial oppression universally condemned as 'a crime against
humanity.'

Propelled by the basic human urge to be free, this generation of young men
and women took to the streets of Soweto and many of our townships in a show of
defiance to the apartheid system. Today, 31 years on, we have gathered here and
elsewhere across our country to remember this epoch-making chapter in the
history of our struggle for freedom.

Indeed, we have once again come together to celebrate the lives of this
generation that hurled itself at the juggernaut of apartheid, driven by the
spirit of freedom, justice, democracy and equality. Determined to do everything
humanly possible to bring about freedom in our land, they unlocked a wave of
human energy unequalled in the history of our country. In essence, as we gather
to commemorate the fateful events of that time, we are equally celebrating the
lives of the young men and women who took a resolution never to live under
apartheid oppression, nor to allow the lives of the coming generations to be
destroyed by racial oppression.

Today as we look back at that era we can, with hindsight, confidently say
the June 1976 generation ably responded to the imperatives of their time.
Indeed we can, aided by the vantage of history, state that the 1976 generation
defined for itself its life purpose and set about fulfilling it. Aware that
they had the responsibility to determine their destiny, the youth of June 16
refused to be distracted by the ordinary things that attract the youth.

They sought and found the courage to rise against the apartheid monster so
that, out of the ruins of the apartheid system, they could lay the foundations
upon which would raise a new nation. We have gathered here and elsewhere in our
country to celebrate this generation, which took the liberation struggle to a
higher trajectory.

Through their remarkable acts of bravery born of the determination to assert
their humanity, they irreversibly pushed back the frontiers of oppression.
Unity, vision and adherence to principles were the mortar and bricks that built
this generation into the mighty force that helped to bring us the freedom we
enjoy today.

Fellow South Africans:
The struggle for a better society spans generations, with each generation
called upon by the imperatives of its age to carry out its 'generational
mandate'.

Each succeeding generation faces the responsibility carefully to study its
social conditions, accordingly to set its own agenda, so that it can contribute
to a better human condition. Our current generation of young people owes it to
history to protect and champion the ideals of social justice, an abiding
culture of human rights, and a humane, just and equitable social order.

What then, are the challenges the present generation has to grapple with?
What kind of youth consciousness is needed today to address the kind of issues
thrown up by a free, non-racial society? Indeed, what are the characteristics
required of the present generation to measure up to the challenges faced by our
democratic order? Importantly, how does the current generation ensure continued
contribution to the systematic national effort to undo the pervasive social
reality spawned by apartheid?

These are the questions that must be answered during the process of building
a better society for all our people, black and white, and to create conditions
that will allow the youth of our country to enjoy their lives in conditions of
total freedom. Correctly, the youth of our country today have to confront the
question whether, in these conditions of freedom, they have marked out a role
for themselves, necessarily to help bring to fruition the objectives of this
free society set in motion by the youth of June 16, 1976.

The task at hand for all the youth of our country in post-apartheid society,
31 years after 1976, and 13 years into our freedom, is to mobilise our
collective energies to advance the transformation project of our country, and
to build a united and prosperous nation. Today in post-apartheid South Africa,
13 years into this hard-won democracy, our youth face the task to identify and
define for itself the societal challenges embedded in the womb of our era.

Unavoidably, this task will not be easy, but has to be accomplished lest we,
collectively as society, betray the legacy, values and vision that have, over
the years of struggle, given shape and meaning to the character of the South
Africa that the June '76 generation sought to create.

Our youth today, during this period of building a united, non-racial and
non-sexist society, need to cultivate a clear understanding of the kind of
socio-economic conditions we will inevitably pass on to the next generation.
More than ever before, the challenges of reconstruction and development in our
country cannot be tackled effectively without a deepened understanding of
strategic societal issues.

To what extent do our youth today understand the intricate nature of a
modern economy? How deep is our understanding of globalisation and other
related global challenges that have a bearing on our country, and indeed, our
continent's development trajectory? How pervasive is the culture of reading
among the youth of our country? And how eagerly are those with skills and
knowledge among our youth prepared to put these critical requisites at the
service of society?

Fellow South Africans,

During the 1980s a new generation of youth emerged, conscious of the
political need to continue to wage the struggle for a free South Africa.

Again, with his ever-lucid political mind, OR Tambo called this generation
'the Young Lions'. That generation of the young people of our country has, like
the
1976 generation before it, responded to the dictates of its conscience, taking
up the cudgels rightly to meet the requirements of its age. Today we look
forward to the present generation to take forward the struggle in the context
of the different conditions of freedom we have created ourselves.

Correctly, we need to ask the question whether this generation is living up
to our country's long tradition of youth leadership on major questions of the
day.

What is the present generation doing to help government and the rest of
society to address the challenges of teenage pregnancies, drug and alcohol
abuse as well as the challenge of deepening democracy in our country? Whereas
the past generations of youth fought to reclaim our humanity from those who had
set themselves the impossible task of denying it to us, the present youth
should seek to fulfil the sense of our humanity.

Indeed, celebrating life and freedom within the context of social
responsibility and awareness call for deepening our knowledge with regard to
challenges that face our nation, our continent and our world. Among others, we
need to fulfil the sense of our humanity through being aware of major issues
such as globalisation, climate change, unfair global trade, technological
challenges, the threat of terrorism, racism, xenophobia and sexism, human
trafficking and multilateralism and global governance.

At the same time, all of us must understand that we cannot fulfil the dreams
of a better life for all our people when our communities are faced with a
serious problem of young drug addicts and alcoholics who face a bleak future
and constitute a liability to society. We cannot fulfil the dreams of a better
life for all, for which thousands of the 1976 generation lost their lives, if
our young people are caught up in irresponsible sexual lifestyles.

We cannot fulfil the dreams of a better life for all, when in our schools,
which are there to serve as nurseries to prepare our youth for the future, we
find learners carrying dangerous knives, guns and drugs. We cannot build a
caring society when the taking of human life and acts of robbery become
commonplace. The foundations for the future have to be laid today. But if our
youth, who are supposed to be at the heart of that future, are languishing in
jails because of crime, or are turned into young mothers because of teenage
pregnancies, we will not fully succeed to lay this foundation.

Without critical social consciousness among the young generation we cannot
build a society based on good moral foundations, compliance with the law,
respect for our democratic institutions and a culture of upholding the
constitution. Our country's reconstruction and development efforts should be
underwritten by active involvement of our youth in moral regeneration efforts
and supporting government programmes that are geared to fighting poverty,
illiteracy, unemployment and crime.

We live in a globalised world shaped by powerful forces that impact on the
destinies of weak, poor and developing nations. Understanding globalisation
issues enable us to develop a critical consciousness about our responsibilities
in the world, so that based on this knowledge, we can, correctly, wage
struggles for global justice, peace and equality.

Today, as the challenges embodied in globalisation continue to bear down on
the developing south, our youth must begin to question dominant forms of
discourse and relations that shape the agenda of world affairs. They have the
responsibility to ask questions about the distribution process of the fruits of
the earth, and begin to elevate the agenda of the developing nations, placing
it on the table of the multilateral institutions.

There cannot be any future for our youth to inherit if global warming
continues unabated through the destructive production and consumption patterns
of the rich and powerful from the developed world who have, due to their power,
voraciously amassed the wealth of the planet earth without regard for the
consequences of their actions on the rest of humanity.

Like the June '76 detachment that shook the world through pursuing the
agenda of equality, justice, and democracy, our youth should be seized with the
task to strive for a world free of domination, poverty, racism, sexism, and
under-development. Again, we need to pause to ask the proper question: what
kind of youth do we need today in post-apartheid South Africa, 13 years into
our freedom?

As youth who will rightfully claim the future, we need to begin now to
re-imagine reality. We need to begin now to roll our sleeves to work towards
the reconstruction and development of the African continent and continue to
strive for a humane, peaceful and prosperous world. We need to begin now to
understand the challenges that undermine the yearnings of the people of Africa
and world to extricate their lives from the trap of poverty, powerlessness,
under-development and inequality.

Fellow South Africans:

We need to accelerate our own national efforts towards the development and
empowerment of our youth. For this reason, among other things, a bursary and a
loan programme for new and young teachers has been established so as to prepare
these young people to be better leaders of tomorrow. Government, through the
Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa), has identified the
need for development of scarce skills among our youth. Such scarce and critical
skills include artisans, boilers, engineers, town planners etc.

In order to accelerate this process, government has allocated R600 million
towards the recapitalisation of the Further Education and Training (FET)
colleges. During this financial year, more than 20 000 students have been
registered for the National Certificate programmes. As part of promoting
integration in our skills development effort, various skills development
institutions such as the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs), FET
and centres of higher learning will implement provisions of the Memoranda of
Understanding (MoU) they have entered into.

Government has also increased the National Student Finance Aid Scheme
(NSFAS) for needy university students among other things to address skills
shortages in such areas as science, technology and engineering. Our skills
development programme provides that we need to increase the number of young
people doing mathematics and science at higher grade so that we improve the
graduate output to 50 000 by 2008. Government continues to monitor the 529
Dinaledi schools where the project is currently being implemented.

As part of promoting healthy lifestyles among our youth, we continue to
implement physical activity programmes. The campaign also promotes the
development of food gardens in schools and communities and anti-smoking
initiatives among young people. Government has also undertaken to embark on an
awareness campaign to reduce illegal drugs and substance abuse among our youth.
Our safety and security agencies conduct regular operations to end the movement
and abuse of drugs.

Towards the end of last year, Cabinet took a decision that, as part of
accelerating youth economic participation a Presidential Youth Development
Forum must be set up, chaired by the Deputy President and the National Youth
Commission (NYC) Chairperson. The inaugural sitting of the forum is set to take
place on Monday, 18 June 2007. This forum will help us to promote more
understanding among the business community that our youth are the future and
investing in them today contributes towards sustainable development of our
economy.

A research study conducted by the National Youth Commission points that only
25% of our municipalities have local youth units and 24% have youth policies.
This tells us that the integration of youth development in our local government
work still requires radically to be improved. More individuals and
organisations are called upon to support government and the youth development
leadership to carry out the work of responding to the challenges facing young
people.

Fellow South Africans:

One thousand and ninety one (1 091) days separate us from the kick-off of
the 2010 Soccer World Cup very little time indeed. This means our youth should
have started positioning themselves to assist our country and the continent to
host one of the best Soccer World Cup tournaments ever seen. Our youth should
continue engaging the various role-players on the opportunities arising from
this festival of young sports people, many of whom would be coming to Africa
for the first time.

I would also like to take this opportunity to convey our best wishes to the
athletes, young and old, who will be participating in the Comrades Marathon
tomorrow. To all young and not-so-young people participating in various sports
activities this weekend I would like to say - Good Luck! I wish everyone a
happy Youth Day.

Thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
16 June 2007
Source: SAPA