Far from being politically apathetic, South Africa's youth are redefining the way they engage in struggle in a democratic society, writes Michael Sachs.
The youth movement stood at the forefront of political engagement at the time of the struggle against apartheid. Why is that in the democratic order the youth are often believed to be disengaged from political institutions? Youth disengagement from democratic institutions is sometimes explained by invoking a powerful myth: that the youth are apathetic. This paper offers an alternative explanation: because democratic movements and institutions have failed to engage the youth, the youth have given expression to their profound optimism and energy by politicising the cultural sphere.
Motive forces on the terrain of democracy
The most immediate task of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) was, and is, to dismantle the racial structure of power. Various motive forces of the NDR, the social groups that railed against institutionalised racism, stood to gain materially and socially from the defeat of the system in a most immediate sense. Without the defeat of white power the most basic issues they faced in their daily lives could not be addressed.
In April 1994 these motive forces achieved a voice in the state. For the first time in a long and bloody history they could be heard and their needs and interests placed at the centre of government policy. In this vein the 1996 discussion document, 'The State and Social Transformation', argued that: "The most important current defining feature of the South African democratic state is that it champions the aspirations of the majority who have been disadvantaged by the many decades of undemocratic rule. Its primary task is to work for the emancipation of the black majority, the working people, the urban poor, the rural poor, the women, the youth and the disabled. It is the task of this democratic state to champion the cause of these people in such a way that the most basic aspirations of this majority assumes the status of hegemony which informs and guides policy and practice of all the institutions of government and state."
Industrial workers stood to gain considerably from the democratic breakthrough. Their most immediate demand was the defeat of the apartheid workplace regime, which oppressed them doubly as black people and as workers. But, in contrast to the youth movement, industrial workers had the advantage of disciplined and organised trade unions, with a leadership schooled in the art of negotiated change. Pressure from below, organised on the factory floor, and the exercise of democratic state power from above combined to achieve a fundamental break with racist oppression in the workplace. Since 1994 South Africa has put in place remarkably progressive labour market policies given our level of economic development.
This could only have been achieved in the context of a change in the mode of engagement of the organisations of the black working class. Karl von Holdt describes the impact of the democratic breakthrough as follows: "For the first time, the colonised had breached the walls of political exclusion -they were now citizens with the right to vote for government... Shop stewards and workers now saw it as necessary to separate and redefine the politics of the union's relationship with government and its engagement with management...The election of the ANC government ... constituted the moment of democratic incorporation of the working class."
Of course the NDR has not ended the exploitation of workers as workers. But the defeat of white power in the workplace has qualitatively changed the terrain on which this struggle takes place. The popular organisations of the workers, trade unions, were able to change their mode of engagement to suit this new terrain. Women too have made immediate gains from their incorporation into the democratic system. The women in the liberation movement were the most advanced and experienced feminist activists in the country. They rode the wave of a women's movement that was mass-based and national in character. As the confrontation and resistance of the apartheid era gave way to the negotiation of a democratic order, women's organisations, like unions, were able to change the form and nature of their civic engagement.
According to one study:"[t]he shift from resistance to negotiations politics saw the consolidation of women as a political constituency within political parties and civil society as they joined forces across racial, class and political divides to fight for inclusion within the new democracy. This movement was bolstered by a strong women's leadership that had been fostered by the struggles and debates of the 80s and which was to demonstrate its capacity to intervene strategically in the interests of women in the 1990's."
Partly as a consequence of this, specific policies to address the needs of working class women have been vigorously pursued by the democratic state. These include the extension of the welfare net, better access to health care, the roll out of basic services and a plethora of specific programmes to prevent and combat violence and unfair discrimination against women. Gender concerns have featured prominently in processes such as affirmative action and black economic empowerment.
Of course it would be wrong to argue that the NDR has 'liberated' women. Nevertheless, democratic governance has qualitatively transformed the terrain on which this struggle takes place; and part of the explanation for this is that a coherent women's movement was able to adjust its mode of engagement to the needs of democratic governance, and to articulate a clear programme for state action.
Youth institutions and disengagement
The youth also represented a leading motive force of the liberation struggle. At the moment of qualitative breakthrough in 1994 they stood at the forefront of the battalions of resistance. Over the 50 years from the formation of the ANC Youth League until 1994, South African youth remained at the front-line of confrontation with the racist state.
But as a movement, progress has been much more uneven that that associated with either women or workers. The programmatic framework for youth development has taken much longer to put in place. At every level of government, and across civil society, it is doubtful, even today, whether a clear, consistent and realisable programme of youth development has been articulated and implemented. Furthermore, the youth institutions of the democratic state have been burdened with capacity problems, infighting and high levels of leadership turnover.
One indication of these problems is perhaps given by the fact that, whereas women have secured a 50% quota on the ANC's local government electoral lists, and whereas worker unions have played a strong role in deploying unionists as public representatives at all levels, the same cannot be said of youth. Looking at the ANC's lists for national and provincial elections in 2004, one would be hard pressed to find more than a handful of people falling below the age of 35.
Perhaps part of the problem is the nature of youth organisation. Whereas women remain female for their whole lives (in most cases), and the bulk of the workers also remain workers, the category 'youth' is continually changing as new generations take over from the old. 'Youth' are inextricably destined to become 'adults'. New generations are emerging, which requires us to constantly reinvent youth politics. These shifting sands of youth organisation mean that most of the public representatives from the youth movement can no longer be defined as youth.
Whatever the case, we have not yet succeeded to create institutions that effectively champion the cause of the youth in such a way that their most basic aspirations assume the status of hegemony that informs and guides policy and practice of all the institutions of government and state.
These weaknesses of state institutions to service the youth may be directly linked to the weakness of the youth as a mobilised and organised social force in the democratic order. The ANC's National General Council in 2000 aptly described this situation: "We have made progress in setting up state institutions that can act as instruments of change and we have established policy frameworks that give direction to these instruments. However, we have failed to mobilise the motive forces around these programmes and they have not been empowered to engage with these instruments... The youth in particular need to be mobilised behind the revolution, to which end limited resources must be directed at addressing issues such as high unemployment, which constrains the participation of the youth."
Paradoxically, while youth were regarded as the most politically engaged detachment of the revolution in the apartheid era, they have, on the terrain of democratic politics, become among the most disengaged. The evidence pointing in this direction is considerable.
Since the social ferment of the late 1980s and early 90s youth membership of public organisations has declined substantially. Figure 1 shows the results of surveys into youth membership of political organisations. In 2000 57% of youth said they belonged to no organisation. In 1992 15% of youth said they belonged to a political organisation, 17% said they belonged to a youth organisation and 5% a civic. In 2000 only 4% said they belonged to a political organisation, 7% to a youth organisation and 1% to a civic.
Church and sports organisations remain the most popular in terms of youth membership today, but are also well down from the high levels of membership associated with the social ferment of the late 1980s and early 90s.
Youth disengagement from the new institutions of democracy compared with older age groups is also apparent in the registration figures. At the time of the 1999 election only 77% of those in their twenties were registered to vote, whereas more than 95% of those over 40 were registered. By the 2004 national and provincial elections, only 50% of those between the age of 18 and 25 were registered. Put differently, while census 2001 estimated that people aged 18-35 constituted 52% of the voting age population, only 44% of registered voters were in this age group at the time of the 2004 election.
Again, this contrasts markedly with both workers and women who, by all accounts, remain the most politically mobilised segments of our society, at least in electoral terms.
International experience of youth disengagement
Low levels of youth participation in democratic politics are not a uniquely South African phenomenon. Youth 'apathy' is common and increasingly worrying feature of so-called 'mature' democracies. This is typically expressed in low levels of voter turnout among the youth. While voting is only one of the mechanisms through which citizens voice their needs in a democratic system, it is the most basic level of participation. Therefore, it can give us an indication of the levels of political engagement more generally.
A study of youth voter participation conducted in western Europe in the 1990s found that: "Turnout [of registered voters] is usually low amongst the youngest age category (80%), then increases more or less pronouncedly as electors approach middle age, reaches the highest levels of participation amongst people between 60 and 69 years of age (around 93%), and finally decreases slightly to around 90% for the oldest age group".
The same report identifies two alternative explanations for low youth participation in democratic politics: (a) the life-cycle explanation and (b) the generational explanation.
The life-cycle explanation rests on the assumption that participation in politics requires certain social resources, which are only acquired as people grow older. These include:
As they acquire these resources, older people are believed to become more attached to parties and to internalise ideologies more deeply. Therefore it is argued that: "If age represents experience, it is therefore not surprising that young, inexperienced citizens have the lowest levels of participation. As they grow older, they become integrated and more experienced, which in turn increases their turnout."
The implication of the life-cycle explanation is that, as youth grow older they will participate in politics. We should not worry too much about the current generation because, like their mothers and fathers before them, they will mature into full political citizens of the democratic state.
By contrast, the generational explanation assumes that there is something specific about this generation of youth, which distinguishes their political behaviour from that of their mothers and fathers.
"The generational explanation is based on the idea that low turnout among young electors is not explained by their lack of political experience and integration, but rather by the fact that they belong to a generation that does not attach enough importance to the electoral process, or feels excluded or alienated from politics, in part due to a particularly demobilisatory socialising process common to the whole cohort."
The worrying conclusion of this explanation is that levels of turnout, and interest in participation in democratic institutions, will become increasingly rare in 'democratic' societies.
Global trends are relevant to South Africa. But the reasons for youth disengagement from formal politics in South Africa cannot be read from an international barometer. A variety of factors distinguish youth South Africa from the situation in western Europe, including:
This underscores the need to develop a specifically South African understanding of the relation of youth to politics, which is rooted in the realities of our new democracy.
The paradox of youth disengagement in South Africa
Why is it that the youth, who formed the leading battalions in the popular movements for people's power from the 1970s to the 1990s, have become the most disengaged segment of the population following the victory of those movements and the creation of a democratic order? To understand this we must first consider the nature of youth engagement as a political force against the white supremacist state. The Status of the Youth 2002 report says that from the 1970s onwards:
"...School grounds became not just a battlefield against the symbols of oppression, but also a melting pot where a variety of youth efforts and interests combined to form a national youth resistance movement. The Soweto rebellion laid a charge for the youth to begin to challenge the apartheid system head on in the streets of South Africa... They assumed the role of midwives of the struggle and this took a heavy toll on the childhood of South African youth.
"With the heightening frustration and desperation, the youth took the struggle back into the streets and in direct confrontation with the machinery of the apartheid system..."
It may be true that the sudden shifts in the political terrain that occurred after 1990 caught the whole mass movement off-balance. It took time for the motive forces of the NDR to renegotiate the terms of their engagement on the terrain of democracy. But the youth movement, which, more than any other, was defined by its unrelenting militancy, was found most wanting the transition period. During their resistance to apartheid the youth had been most engaged in forms of resistance such as boycotts, civil disobedience and violent confrontation with the security forces. These forms of engagement inflicted telling punishment on the enemy, but also resulted in damage to the youth.
Having defeated apartheid and instituted a new political order it is ironic, but perhaps not surprising therefore, that the midwives of our liberation were at a disadvantage in the new order. They sacrificed their childhood, and in many cases their education. Having learned the street politics of active resistance and practiced the art of militant defiance, the ability of youth to seize the opportunities of democracy was wounded from the start.
The democratic order defined new methods of engagement that the youth were not familiar with. Democratic political engagement required precisely the skills and tools that the youth in particular lacked. Whereas workers had a long organisational memory of negotiation and democratic engagement, youth organisations had to fundamentally change in order to adapt to the new circumstances. Whereas gender activists were united across the divisions of apartheid society by the common creed of feminism, the youth were as divided (if not more so) by the lines of apartheid society.
But it would be wrong to lay the blame entirely at the door of the youth movement itself. The mother bodies too were instrumental in demobilising the youth after the democratic breakthrough. The late Parks Mankahlana once remarked that: "The leadership of the organisation shifted from the young lions to the old guard. The youth took a back seat. Today the national leadership of the ANC is characterised by old men whose traditions and conventions are deeply entrenched."
Others have argued that the youth were consciously demobilised by the leadership of the democratic movement. The message was no longer "youth to the frontlines", it was rather "go back to school". But the movement failed to articulate other forms of political mobilisation that could channel the energies of youth in the direction of democratic engagement, and realise the potential of the energy and commitment of our young people.
Debunking the myth of apathy
Rather than taking responsibility for youth disengagement, it is much more convenient to blame the youth. This is reflected in claims that the 'youth are ungrateful'. It is said that, since they were 'born free' the youth are not as patriotic than their elder compatriots. It is argued that, whereas previous generations of youth had thrown themselves headlong into the liberation struggle, the current crop of young people are more interested in American music and morally questionable behaviour. In other words, the paradox of youth disengagement is explained by invoking a powerful myth: that youth are apathetic, apolitical, consumerists.
But public opinion research consistently provides evidence to refute the view that the youth are politically apathetic. A host of surveys find that youth are the most interested in politics and elections, are most satisfied with process of change, are most optimistic about the future and are most supportive of the liberation movement.
One study found that: "Although young people may not be politically active to the extent their predecessors were, they remain politically aware and engaged. Asked a series of questions about the extent to which politics was seen as a waste of time or a civic duty, youth were least likely (10%) to agree that politics was a waste of time. They were most likely (at 38%) to agree that it is very important to keep in touch with politics, while the remaining 52% felt that while politics was unpleasant it was important to stay in touch...[Only] 7% of youth agreed that voting is a waste of time compared with twice that number of respondents aged above 50."
More recently, an SABC/Markinor Opinion poll (2003) asked more than 3,500 respondents if they were interested in politics.
"With regard to age, the interest among different age groups was almost on a par with 64% of 18-24 year olds and 65% of 25-34 year olds reporting being "very" or "somewhat" interested. The generation who were teenagers and young adults in the tumultuous mid-seventies and early eighties (the 35-49 year olds) were the least interested in politics."
In other words, this survey indicates that it is not the 'born frees' who are politically apathetic. Rather it is the 'young lions' of yesteryear, the generation that cut their political teeth in the late 1970s, who are the most apathetic age group in today's South Africa.
In the absence of an exit poll, it is impossible to scientifically estimate the turnout of youth in the 2004 elections. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that a large number of youth did participate in the election, in contrast to the predictions of some analysts. A researcher who did detailed analysis of voting patterns in KwaZakhele in the Eastern Cape commented that: "Although an age profile of voters is not available, researchers were impressed by the enthusiasm of young voters, indicating that there is little truth to the notion that the youth are apathetic about politics - at least in the working class townships such as Kwazakele". Pansy Tlakula, the IEC's Chief Electoral Officer, wrote in a review of the electoral process that: "What has also been of major significance with regard to these elections is the substantial increase of youth participation in the electoral process".
As we have said, although youth constitute the largest section of registered voters, the levels of registration, as a proportion of all youth, remain low. But rather than reflecting a rejection of politics by the new generation of youth this may reflect a life-cycle problem (ie. that young people, more than others lack the political and social resources to become registered voters). This means that we should be looking at ways of making the registration of youth an ongoing programme, and simplifying the procedures.
The only conclusion that can be reached from all of this evidence is that the myth of apathy must be rejected. Although disengaged from many of the democratic institutions we have created, it is not that youth are not interested in politics, but rather that the institutions of democracy are failing to engage them. The words of an American youth leader may apply well to South Africa: "Young people are socially conscious, and posses the energy and idealism necessary to change the world. Unfortunately, most do not see politics as the vehicle through which to exercise social responsibility, but rather as a forum that both excludes and ignores them."
Youth culture as a starting point for a new youth politics
Today's youth culture is much maligned in society in general as being self-centred as opposed to community oriented, dominated by foreign influence, apolitical and disrespectful of authority. The 'born frees' are regarded as unworthy heirs to the legacy of the 'young lions'. Kwaito music is said to epitomise these tendencies.
In fact, the vast majority of the 'Kwaito generation', while obviously not as politicised as the youth of the 1970s and 80s, are highly conscious of their identity as black people living in a society that has not yet achieved non-racialism, and they are generally sympathetic to the project of progressive transformation. But in a context where politics ignores and excludes the youth, new generations have sought other means to express energy and idealism. This has led to a renaissance of youth culture not witnessed since the days of Sophiatown.
Kwaito music, house, hip-hop and reggae form a single cultural milieu among South African youth, and are a fertile expression of a truly South African, non-racial culture. While strongly asserting African and black identity, it is a fundamentally non-racial movement, and draws in large numbers of youth from all national minorities. As a direct consequence of the democratic victories of the last decade this is the social context in which a new subjective non-racialism is emerging.
Anyone familiar with the lyrics and symbolism of the emerging black youth culture in South Africa cannot but be struck by the extent to which politics of the liberation struggle and the discourse of emancipation have been reinvented by new generations. The youth are giving new meaning to the politics of their mothers and fathers and are creating a new politics of human liberation that is entirely appropriate to the democratic order.
Rather than blame the youth it would behove us all to look inwardly and ask not why the youth have disengaged from political and social movements, by why political and social movements have become disengaged from the youth. In other words it is political movements that have consistently failed to communicate to youth and address their concerns. It is this that that lies at the root of youth disengagement rather than the erroneous idea that the youth are politically apathetic.
The new generations have placed politics in the centre of a new youth culture, which has emerged in the context of the victory of the liberation struggle, and which has transformed the nature of liberation politics and black assertion in the democratic era. Any reengagement with the youth must begin with where the youth are today, rather than where their mothers and fathers think they should be.
Michael Sachs is the ANC national research coordinator.
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