Blending youth, experience progressive Young legislators like Justice Mayor Wadyajena (seen here making a presentation in Parliament) are vital to the policy-making process
Young legislators like Justice Mayor Wadyajena (seen here making a presentation in Parliament) are vital to the policy-making process

Young legislators like Justice Mayor Wadyajena (seen here making a presentation in Parliament) are vital to the policy-making process

Nick Mangwana View From the Diaspora

The main political parties in Zimbabwe have Youth Wings. They are always said to be the vanguard of the party in as far as foot soldiering is concerned. The argument is that these should move from being that, to being the intellectual division of many political parties. When youth is tampered with the wisdom of experience, the result can be majestic.

WHEN the June by-elections were announced, there were a lot of young candidates. As a result, the outcome ushered in quite a few young people into the parliamentary system.

It will be a tragedy if these young people disappear in the system without making an impact that reflects the vibrancy and energy that should come with their youth.

Of course, there is a call that they should not just be backbenchers. If some of the ones with good skills to add value to the executive would do so, then that’s even better. But even those that will remain in the back benches should make themselves felt there. The country is in need of colourful, fearless and charismatic MPs. The younger the better.

They should realise that besides their constituencies, they are representing young people that are getting more and more disenchanted with politics. For how can they even think of politics when they have not been able to use the degrees they have obtained.

When education has become a gamble as to whether it gives a good life or not is depending on the size of the straw one draws. And now most of the straws are the short ones with once in a while a long one thrown with the lot.

Young people need a proper voice in both the government and the party. Having a voice does not mean just having a token representative. It means being in a position to influence the policy formulation process. It means making a mark through ground-breaking contributions.

Most of those who were minsters in 1980 were in their 30s therefore qualifying for the definition of a youth. These young people played pivotal roles in the liberation of the country.

This did not apply to Zimbabwe only.

Does anyone remember in 1994 when Nelson Mandela made a suggestion that the voting age should be lowered to 14? This was in recognition of the role these young people (children) had played in the struggle against apartheid.

His argument was simply that, if they had enough consciousness to confront an evil system then that consciousness should be enough to make them make an informed choice on who to vote for. These young people had fought a big fight and when it comes to the vote which they were fighting for, they found themselves disenfranchised.

Without digressing too much from the thrust of this piece maybe there would be no harm to throw a teaser here; if at the age of 16 children can give consent to sexual activity, maybe they also can make a choice on who governs them, right? The same applies in Zimbabwe where most people that went to war were under 18. If they were old enough to carry a gun to liberate the country, were they not old enough to exercise political judgment?

The relevance of the above immediate argument is that it is the same attitude where younger people are used as a means to an end. Their role was to force Ian Smith to the table or to surrender. In Zimbabwe’s case it saw itself getting quite some young ministers. But it would appear faith in young people ended with that generation as there are no more young people of those age groups finding themselves in Cabinet. They have become irrelevant until the next election where they would hit the campaign trail. Relevant young people have to have jobs. Having young people represented in Cabinet might help make the case even better.

This notion that young people are unpatriotic, irresponsible and lack wisdom because of the petulance of youth is a fallacy. Is it an argument out there that a youthful revolutionary spirit was a preserve of those born in the pre-Independence era only? The same revolutionary awakening the liberation forerunners had is still found in the youth of today.

If a young person is considered responsible for the choices they make in life such as being held accountable for their activities such as criminal cases then it makes sense to put them when decisions that affect their lives. The country cannot afford apathy by young people. There is a need for their constructive social participation. There is no better social capital than the empowered young people. After all, they are a source of dynamic innovation and lateral thinking. If there is an artificial barriers packaged as lack of ideological grounding they must be removed for they are only self-seeking for those that erect them.

The role of the young people is not simply activism, it should be inclusion into political institutions and policy development otherwise they would feel disillusioned from a sense of just being means to an end for a big comrade so and so. Young people should be allowed space political leadership positions. Not only to lead their peers but to lead all different facets of political decision-making. It is not denigration of established leadership to say the young people have a lot to contribute including fresh ideas.

One cannot talk of sustainable development and progress without the involvement of the next generation to take the country to the next level. After all, the youth are the perpetuation and progression of what we are. The Zanu-PF Government is a legitimately elected government which got its mandate through a popular vote. However, there seems to be a democratic disconnect between rhetoric and reality. The youth played a very important role in that election victory. But after that they went back to hawking and it is some of these that have lost out to unscrupulous land barons.

A modern society cannot function on obsolescent methods. The country cannot afford stiff-jointed approach to the issues of modernity. The truth is everyone wants modernity. People bring modernity to their houses in the form of technology. They send their children to modern schools with less and less decision-makers sending their children to mission boarding schools. The interesting thing is, it is only when it comes to governance and other modern day approaches that people then reject modernity saying Africans have their way of doing things! No matter which way one looks at that, it sounds self-serving.

As today’s challenges veer more and more from yesteryear’s their handing should also espouse today’s solutions and today’s ways of viewing the world. Citizen engagement is no longer so much about gathering hordes of people in a rally and addressing them or telling them what’s what. While there are those citizens that benefit more outreaches. But there is also a big constituency that finds dissonance in going to rallies. They would like to engage differently. And those interactive technological platforms may seem mundane today but they will become and more part of our lives. There is a need to bridge that gap between the aspirations of the younger people and the views of the fathers.

It was the younger people who had the courage and conviction to confront the vile oppressive and racist regime of Ian Smith using the methods of the ‘60s and ‘70s, it is the young people of this day who have the imagination to confront disease and poverty which afflicts the continent using today’s approaches. Denying that Zimbabwe’s politics and economics need regeneration is the problem itself. This is what has to be confronted first. Denial of everything out there except those which one has experienced is the bane of most developing countries.

It is this denial which provides a false insulation against the world that is fast changing around us as we remain static in our old ways of doing things. It is this denial that will be the dearth of our progress. We also now know that sometimes this denial is packaged as defiance. But then the only thing that is being defied is progress.

There should be an open conviction to reinvigorate every function of the State by bringing in younger people and give them an licence to be imaginative (within reason, of course). The main political parties in Zimbabwe have youth wings. They are always said to be the vanguard of the party in as far as foot soldiering is concerned. The argument is that these should move from being that, to being the intellectual division of many political parties. When youth is tempered with the wisdom of experience, the result can be majestic.

Zimbabwe’s political system should be listening enough, adapting sufficiently to make politics “cool” for the young people. Right now politics is invoking a sense of revulsion among young people. This is because politics has remained segregationist, outdated and profligate. These are traits that no longer find resonance with the new crop.

The young people are the primary stakeholders in the politics of the future. It is not asking for too much to call for their full inclusion in matters that that help shape that future. Failure to do so will mire the country in political obsolescence.

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