The idea that today’s youth is any different from any other generation of young people is a self-soothing untruth, says Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya.
Durban - One does not need to be a sports team coach to know that there is no substitute for mixture of youth and experience. The current all-conquering All Blacks rugby team epitomises this truism.
But this column is not about rugby. It is certainly not about the All Blacks, especially not now, after they have wreaked havoc and cost many an ear to hear impolite words from the normally self-restrained.
I want to return to a theme I have been harping on in the past few columns. Youth and the despair of those who believe we are facing the end of times as a nation.
I do not agree that we are.
South Africa is undergoing great turbulence. To every birth its blood, as Wally Mongane Serote said in his novel of the same name.
What is required of us, the grown-ups, is patience and compassion for the youth. It is the only way that we can have any influence on them and make them see the error of their ways.
The idea that today’s youth is any different from any other generation of young people in the past, or indeed in the future, is a self-soothing untruth.
Consider the following passage. “Ours is a time of religious decay; the permanent vitality of religion has been lost, the mass of the people have become either superstitious or credulous or indifferent to religion; the elite of society are agnostic or sceptical; the political leaders are hypocrites; the youth are in open conflict with established society and with the authority of the past; people are experimenting with eastern religions and techniques of meditation. The majority of mankind is affected by the decay of the times.”
The passage comes from the writings of first century Roman senator, Tacitus. They are part of the body of work called Annals of Tacitus written between 32 and 37 of the Common Era.
I suspect that like me, you might have thought they were written a lot more recently. Just goes to show how little has changed in about 2 000 years.
There is indeed nothing new under the sun.
Knowing that the youth in Tacitus’s time was in open conflict with established society and with the authority of the past should at the very least remind us that it is the essence of youth to take issues with what is regarded as the natural order of things.
Pack for Perth if you must, but do not do so under the illusion that the youth there is any better or that their politicians are necessarily different. You will be disappointed.
The exuberance of youth and the indifference of politicians is a permanent feature of society, as the passage from Tacitus has reminded us.
If your teenage child arrives home sporting a new look and tells you that it is because they have abandoned the family’s religious teachings and found a new faith that makes sense to them, take heart. They are not the first.
What we should rather do is spend the energy we use to criticise “today’s youth” or “they” (as some among us politely refer to a black-dominated government), creating systems to manage youthful expectations and zeal, as well as consequences for those who abuse public power they have been entrusted with.
Do not get me wrong. No society should tolerate lawlessness and anarchy. Where such arise, they should be stopped and those in the wrong should have the book thrown at them.
We must however not miss the wood for the trees. Even as our prisons are filled up with youngsters, we must ask ourselves what it is that makes young people with their entire lives ahead of them risk it all to pursue a goal that is bigger than themselves. We saw how during apartheid, the threat of being left on a desolate Robben Island, if you were lucky, or being blown to smithereens by a murderous bunch calling themselves “security police”, did not stop others from enlisting themselves to the course of freedom.
While I condemn some of the tactics, especially the violence and looting of civilians and businesses that have nothing to do with universities or education policymakers, I preach for an education Codesa where all stakeholders in education can sit around a table and work out a plan for greater access to education for those who are excluded purely because they were born of poor parents.
It is fair to ask the realistic question of where the money for “free” education will come from.
But to use a quote much liked by those involved in human capital development: A chief financial officer once asked the chief executive arguing for a training budget for their staff, “What if we spend money training them and then they leave?”
The chief executive answered, “First, we must treat them well enough that they do not want to leave. Secondly, and more importantly, what if we do not train them and they stay?”
* Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya is the editor of The Mercury. Follow him @fikelelom or email [email protected].
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