Hon Deputy Speaker, hon members and guests, creating a vibrant youth voice. South Africa belongs to the young! They are in the process of inheriting this country from the generations that went before them. They will ultimately take over the reins of power and face a daunting task as they do.
Unemployment among youth is a scourge on our society. In 2008, the Centre for Development and Enterprise wrote in their publication, South Africa's Door Knockers, regarding unemployment:
Its most serious aspect is the staggering number of young jobless people. In 2005, four million young people between the ages of 15 and 24 were part of the South African labour force, which means they were available for a job. Of those, 65% - or 2,6 million - were unemployed.
As a result of improved rates of economic growth during the past five years, the situation has improved slightly; however, youth unemployment will not be quickly reduced at current rates of economic growth. Until it is, South Africa will have to cope with threats to social stability, including high levels of crime, associated with endemic unemployment.
That was written before the economic crisis.
Young people are at risk. They often have bad role models and are exposed to things that they never should be exposed to. We have seen the shocking pictures of child-headed households where children raise each other because their parents have died of HIV or TB, and they are left alone. Just a few minutes from this parliamentary complex, teenagers are sniffing glue, ingesting tik and mandrax, and caught in the crossfire of gang warfare. On the streets of Johannesburg, some parents force their children out on the streets to beg for money when those children should be at school. Others suffer physical and emotional abandonment from alcoholic parents and are regularly beaten and physically abused. When you add up the statistics of the various forms of abuse young people suffer, they are staggering. In one university class I attended when I was young, we were asked after a psychology lecture how many of us had been sexually abused as children. Over 50% of us raised our hands in that university classroom as being people in silent protest of having suffered abuse, 50% of the class!
Apart from the unemployment, drugs and abuse, young people are at risk because of a defective education. So many drop out because they cannot afford the tertiary studies at university or college. A friend of mine from the Alexandra Township in Johannesburg completed her BA degree from one of our Ivy League universities. After trying for nearly two years to get work, she ended up doing washing and ironing for one of the madams in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, as her mother and grandmother had done before her. Eventually she emigrated to the United States and found much better work there.
We cannot allow these scenarios to be played out over and over again in the lives of countless young people and feel nothing. We must do more to provide bursaries for those who work hard and get good grades. We must support companies that take on young people in apprenticeships and train them. We must ensure that career guidance is received at the appropriate time.
However, we must ask ourselves: What do young people need of us in this House? Reminding young people on 16 June about the horrors of apartheid year after year is simply not enough. Like those who return over and over again to see the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz, it can become quite pathological for us to stare at the horrors of the past over again. One of the survivors of those concentration camps, Victor Frank, went on to become a world-renowned psychologist. He told the world that it is not so much what we believe about our past that holds us back, but what we believe about our future. It not the fact that we have suffered that will prevent us from succeeding, but what we believe is that we can make a difference tomorrow. It is my firm belief that it is not so much the horrors of apartheid that will affect young people today, but the example and inspiration of good leader who will sketch a realistic and positive dream that we can all live and strive for. That is the genius of somebody like Nelson Mandela.
Today, our young people are watching us as supposed leaders of this country and they need to see real leadership from us. They need to see a leadership that cares and understands their situation and that can inspire them and us to do better. Wearing Armani suits, driving an SLK Mercedes Benz and paying homage at Kliptown once a year will not inspire people. They need leaders who will listen and who will take them seriously. They are not there to provide the cannon fodder for our political agenda. We must help them to become the best that they can be. I close with a quote from one of those young people, a 20-year old called John Harold Benn, who posted a letter on Facebook to President Zuma because he didn't know how to get to him:
You do not know me, my family, my friends, my opinions, thoughts or emotions. You do not know how many times I have shed tears and been heartbroken and hope-filled when I have looked and pondered at the tragedy, beauty and potential that exists in our country. I do not know you, your story, your struggles, or how many times you have stepped back and looked at what South Africa is at this point in history.
I am writing this letter because I have some things that I want others to know, things that I hope will get my fellow South Africans to stop and ponder and turn and face the imminent future with courage and hope and a desire to live with purpose and meaning. I live each day in a personal and dynamic and often difficult relationship with a God who I believe created the universe, each continent, the country we live in. The God that, since the beginning of time, knew that He would send His most precious and treasured Son, Jesus Christ, down to earth to live and die for the helpless and stubborn humans that He had created. And I believe that God has everything under His control, including our President.
I am sorry, Mr President is not here to hear this - You are in the position to make South Africa a great nation, not for herself, but a great nation that will show what living with hope can do in the lives of everyday people. You are who God has placed to govern South Africa, and we need to give you an opportunity to show what God can do with and through any human being. I wish you all the best during your time in office and hope that you might be able to see and have the courage and strength to follow the right - not the easy, or self-serving, or popular path - in every situation you are led to deal with. Yours, John Harold Benn.
Young people, by the sound of that Facebook post, are very interested in what we are doing here, in spite of what we might think. They want leaders who are there for them. What kind of leaders are we? Let us not disappoint them. I thank you. [Applause.]