Date: 10/06/2009

Source: Democratic Alliance

Title: DA: Hollis: Speech by the DA deputy shadow minister of labour in the Youth Day debate, Parliament

Honorable Speaker.

Honorable members.

Guests.

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 reigns of power and they face a daunting task as they do so.

Unemployment among youth is a scourge on our society. In 2008, the Centre for Development and Enterprise wrote 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 per cent - 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."

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 the 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 Parliament complex teenagers are sniffing glue, ingesting tik and mandrax and getting caught in the crossfire of gang warfare. On the streets of Johannesburg, some parents force their young children out on the streets to beg for money when those children should be in school. Others suffer the physical and emotional abandonment from alcoholic parents and are regularly beaten and physically abused. When you add up the various forms of abuse young people suffer, the statistics are staggering. In one university class I attended when I was younger 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 silent protest against the abuse we had suffered.

Apart from the unemployment, drugs and abuse, young people are at risk because of defective education. So many drop out because they cannot afford their 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.

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?"

Reminding young people on June 16th of 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 to stare horrors of the past.

One of the survivors of the concentration camps went on to become the world renowned psychologist, Viktor Frankl. 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 is not the fact that we have suffered which will prevent us from succeeding but whether we believe we can make a difference tomorrow. It is my firm belief that it is not so much the horrors of Apartheid that will affect the young people of today, but the example and inspiration of good leaders who sketch a realistic positive dream that we can all live and strive for. That was the genius of 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 that understands their situation and who can inspire them and us to do better. Wearing Armani suits, driving SLK Mercedes Benzes and paying homage at Kliptown will not inspire people.

They need leaders who listen and who take them seriously. They are not there to provide cannon fodder for our political agenda. We must help them 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 addressed to Mr. Zuma on Facebook, because he didn't know a way to get his letter to the president. I regret that the president isn't here to listen:

"The future president of a great land, South Africa, you do not know me, my family, my friends, my opinions, thought 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 and beauty and potential that exists in our country. I do not know you, your story, your struggles, or how many times you have stepped backed 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 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 the God who I believe created the universe, earth, continent and country that we live in, the God that since the beginning of time knew that He would send His most precious and treasured Son, Jesus, down onto earth to live with and die for the helpless and stubborn humans that He had created. And I believe that God has everything in His control and under his power, including you our president. You are in a 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 the opportunity to show what God can do with and through any human being. I wish you all the best during you time in office and hope that you might be able to see and have the courage and strength to follow the right - not easy, or self-serving, or popular - path in every situation you are lead to deal with.

Yours
John Harold Benn"

Colleagues, young people are interested in what we are doing in this house. What kind of leaders are we? Let us not disappoint them.

I thank you.