Special 5000 Club Newsletter: Youth in Context of 2010 and its Legacy

Speech Delivered in Parliament - 2 June 2010  (please click here if you cant view this email)

My Name is Ian Ollis and I am here to recruit you!

The Youth of South Africa need you, need us,often in ways that we don’t really expect or anticipate. They need role models to follow in order to understand their place in the world and boy do we often disappoint them.

This weekend, the Hon. Deputy Minister of Transport, in exasperation at the landslide defeat of the ANC in by elections in the Western Cape said “The (by election) results are another warning sign to us. I think there have been very serious mistakes from the side of a certain organization that is a league of the ANC… or certain personalities in there.” Of course the leaders of the ANCYL have been calling for destruction of property in the Western Cape which is appalling.

Maar dis net een voorbeeld van die manier waarop die jeug deesdae terleurgestel word. Die Vryheidsfront, sowel as sy bedmaat, die ANC, trek die jeug agteruit deur hul herhaaldelike verwysings na verlede se probleme. Hulle het ‘n patologiese verslawing aan die pyn en swaarkry van apartheid, albei van hulle. Daar is net drie woorde wat oorbly in die ANC se woordeskat: apartheid, Polokwane en rassisme! En hulle herhaal dit oor en oor totdat die jeug die televisie se afstandbeheer gryp en die kanaal verander. Die Vryheidsfront is in dieselfde posisie. Hulle gee die jeug niks om na uit te sien nie, want hulle haak vas in die verlede. Dis eintlik geen verrrassing dat die Vryheidsfront en die ANC so heerlik saamwerk in die regering nie. Hulle leef die rasse-nasionalisme van die verlede uit; presies wat ons jeug nie benodig nie.

Wat ons wel benodig is leierskap wat die jeug ‘n droom gee van ‘n toekoms waarin hulle kan glo. Sal dit nie wonderlik wees as ouers in hierdie land ons kinders hoop gee vir die toekoms nie? In November verlede jaar het ‘n vriendin van my, wat in ‘n township grootgeword het, my in ‘n restaurant vertel sy staan op die punt om na Londen te vertrek. Haar redes was nie wat ek verwag het nie. Sy het gese: “Ek is baie na aan my ouers, maar hulle leef in die verlede, en hulle kan nie ontkom aan die rassisme van die apartheidstyd nie. Ek kan dit nie meer vat nie, daarom verlaat ek die land. Ek het in Londen werk gekry.” So verloor Suid Afrika nog n belowende jong swart uitblinker wat hierdie land kon maak werk.

Parents and grandparents who are still holding onto the pain of the past do not have a free open hand to grasp the opportunities of the future.

Another friend of mine told me last week that his grandmother has just declared that when the worldcup is over, she intends burning down the house and spaza shop of the illegal immigrant family at the end of the street. She feels that these illegal immigrants are taking job opportunities and housing space away from true South African families. This kind of behaviour does not set a good example to our youth and it is then not surprising when we get the behaviour the honorable deputy minister of transport was referring to this week.

So I am here to recruit you, to rise above the suffering of the past, to tell our young people about the large amount of goodwill in this country, to tell them that there are opportunities waiting for them out there to excel. They can start new businesses like Mark Shuttleworth and make it big in the international arena, to succeed like the 1995 South African rugby team, to build Africa’s first satellite and launch it into space like the Stellenbosch University did with the Sunsat project. I am here to recruit you to set the example by telling our youth that they can and that they will supercede what we have done, that their generation will rise above those racial chains of the past will inherit a truly equal opportunity society. Now let’s go out there and build it.
 
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