University of KwaZulu Natal: Durban: 9 December 2006  

 ‘IFP YOUTH: SETTING THE AGENDA’ is a bold political declaration. It is an unequivocal statement of action. You have determined the agenda. It now falls to you to give expression and content to this aspiration. 

At the Women’s Brigade Conference last month, I spoke of the grave challenges facing our nation: the absence of leadership; the lack of political will; a weak and fragmented opposition and a dearth of real solutions. But we must do more than provide a commentary of what is going wrong. We must shape an agenda that clearly sets out what the IFP is for, not what we are merely against.  Actions speak louder than words.  We must be doers rather than be just theoreticians.  

If I was to call each one you up to the podium and ask you to tell the Conference what you think the agenda of the IFP is could you do it?  And yet it is our youth who should have this on their fingertips. 

We talk of “setting the agenda”, but what do we actually mean? Will it be a hollow slogan or a call to action? What are the nuts and bolts of such an agenda? How many times have we adopted the most eloquent and well-intended resolutions only for them never to be implemented?  I have suggested at the Women’s Brigade Conference that we should now have resolutions of our past Conferences in front of us, to see and be able to judge how much of what we passed as resolutions has been implemented since our last Conference.  

In KwaZulu-Natal, we are now the official opposition. This means that we must provide a clear alternative to the ANC. I believe that we can win this province back in 2009 if we truly set the agenda.  

The IFP must inspire hope and courage to communities. The IFP must be a party of clean administration, free from graft, corruption and scandals. The IFP must urge fiscal prudence. The IFP must prioritise the fight against HIV/AIDS and provide genuine service delivery. 

I find it appropriate that we meet in a university: a seat of learning and academic excellence. Countries which are succeeding in the fiercely competitive global economy are those which are knowledge propelled. As one looks back, nearly every significant evolution in modern society has sprung upwards from universities.  

Universities have always been the birthplace of revolutions; the hotbed of popular revolt. Some of these revolutions have been for the better, some for the worse. My point is that they have always been the turning point in the life of their nations.  

The youth of this party must rediscover this revolutionary spirit which drove my generation to fight the injustices of apartheid and oppression. If you fail to do so, the future looks bleak. The time has come for the Revolution of Goodwill. The agenda has been determined by history and the special conditions of South Africa.  

It is written in the echoing demands of our people. Our purpose is not to rewrite that agenda, but bring it to the forefront so that it can be attended to by those who have for too long neglected it. Too many people have become too concerned with power and enrichment, to bother remembering that they are the servants of the people. 

It is the specific role of the IFP Youth to sound the warning bells which wake up the country’s leaders and rulers to their duties of office. This must be done within the tradition of our party which is one of speaking with a loud voice from the moral high ground of integrity, moral discipline and respect. 

We are revolutionaries. We want to change things. We are a special ilk because the modalities we adopt are rooted in the methods of non-violence. 

Much of what we have achieved together stands firm today.  Together with the people of South Africa we defeated Apartheid by peaceful resistance while preparing a firm basis for the democratic state that emerged.  Together we have withstood the ravages of Apartheid divisions to salvage and nurture our diverse identities which, together, we call South Africa.  These are remarkable achievements.  We were ridiculed as believers in a pipe-dream when we stated that South Africa would be liberated through peaceful means.  That it would be liberated through negotiations.  That it would be liberated through a process of give and take.  That it was not the armed struggle which would determine the end, but a process of mapping out our future together at a Conference table.  We did not just theorise about these things to the end.  In 1980 I started in this Province with my appointing the Vice-Principal of this University in Pietermaritzburg Professor Denys Schreiner to head a Commission which was named the Buthelezi Commission.  This led to the KwaZulu/Natal Indaba in 1986.  As a result of those negotiations we had the very first non-racial government in South Africa with the KwaZulu Natal Joint Executive Authority.  It was functioning and already providing people of this Province who had been previously disadvantaged with water and electricity through Regional Services Boards.  We have never been a Party of theoreticians, we did not hesitate to dirty our hands when necessary in order to render services to our people.  Let me emphasize that I say all this without being too judgemental about the other strategies which other liberation movements adopted which we rejected at the time such as sanctions and Disinvestments and the armed struggle.  We have always conceded that these strategies had their own contribution to our liberation, even though it was what we advocated as a strategy which finally won the day.  Even at the time I constantly stated that we needed a multi-strategy approach to our liberation.  We need the same composite strategy today as we face the second liberation struggle which is the struggle for economic emancipation.  We need much more than just statements.  We need practicalities.  We should not end up with descriptions of our utterances described in the famous words of “A STORY TOLD BY A FOOL, FULL OF SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING!”   

Today we must rise to the challenge of bringing this noble tradition forward to shake up the indolence and the neglect of power to the unfulfilled agenda set by our people’s needs, wants and aspirations.  

Our government tells us, as it has been telling us for over a decade, that it is committed to redressing the imbalances of the past. One of them is the persistently high youth unemployment and the continuing under-representation of young people in the South African economy. The truth is that the government efforts to include the youth in the economy through various empowerment initiatives rarely take off the ground. They mostly remain on paper where they never transcend the level of familiar platitudes. You all know what I am talking about. Even the announcement of a plan that was made recently by our Deputy-President which is expected to create 9 000 jobs for our youth must be applauded.  But we know that looked at against the vast needs of our people, it is hardly a drop in the ocean. 

I am determined to see the IFP Youth Brigade in action on this issue. There is much you can do in your capacity as a youth role player to prompt the government to get serious about youth empowerment. If the government claims to have youth initiatives ready, its departments certainly fail to disseminate practical information about available skills development and empowerment programmes. You, as youth, must simply demand this information.  I have much appreciated the challenges that the leader of the Youth Brigade Mr Thulasizwe Buthelezi has consistently put to the government of the day concerning the Youth Commission and the administration of the Umsobomvu Fund. 

But this is where your involvement only starts. I urge you to mirror the Official Opposition this party has recently become in KwaZulu-Natal.   We in the national Parliament have always played our role as one of the opposition parties.  We have never minced words even when I was still in government.  The reason why some of you may not see this clearly is the news black-out we have endured for so long.  There is also a strange practice in our Parliament where we as Opposition parties are given only a few minutes to speak on various issues.  As such I urge you to invite fellow role players and devise your own, alternative initiatives with the aim of promoting and coordinating development programmes and entrepreneurial projects based on self-help and self-reliance. There is a good chance that these, when the IFP is returned to power, will become our official policy on youth affairs.

 Having dedicated a significant part of my political career to the fight against HIV/AIDS, I am sad to note how little has been achieved in South Africa on this battleground. I am sad to note the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the opportunistic infections that aggravate it continue to hit the youth of South Africa in general and KwaZulu-Natal in particular, hardest. The most plausible reason for this state of affairs is that the government’s message about HIV/AIDS, its causes and treatment remains tardy and confusing.  It is only in the past few weeks that a ray of hope has been shed on this issue by the efforts of our Deputy President Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka together with Deputy Minister of Health Ms Nozizwe Madlala Routledge.  This has even resulted in the first positive comments from the United Nations HIV/AIDS representative. 

Unless you as young people that are being mowed down by this pandemic stand up and do everything possible to be in the forefront of this scourge not much progress will be achieved.  And we know now that it can be done.  I shared with you at our last two Conferences how UGANDA led by President Yoweri Museveni reduced the pandemic in that Country from 30% to 5%.  Mrs Janet Museveni, if I may remind you stated to us at a Conference in Pretoria that they achieved this through following the teachings of the scriptures and reviving some of the indigenous mores of the Ugandan people.  Just as we defeated Apartheid through a multi-strategy approach, we can only defeat this pandemic through such a strategy as Uganda has so amply demonstrated.  You should carefully examine the messages of the Southern Africa Catholic Bishops Conference.  I do not suggest that I endorse non-use of prophylactics.  No.  But I deplore the sole reliance on condoms.  As President Yoweri Museveni put it at a Conference of HIV/AIDS in Italy: “If we were to depend on a piece of rubber for our salvation, then we are already doomed.”  Last Saturday I was encouraged to see hundreds of young maidens who had come for virginity tests of their own volition.  They were not dragooned to do so.  There is no mutilation of any part of the young maidens’ bodies when they undergo these tests.  I was privileged to be in Thornville in Pietermaritzburg to give them a word of encouragement.  It is a noble aspiration to remain chaste before marriage as our people did even before the gospel was brought to Africa.  And yet they allowed some deep petting called  UKUSOMA in ISiZulu and UKUMETYA in ISiXhosa. 

You, the youth of KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa, have a unique opportunity to change this. You must not hesitate to use your proximity to and confidence among the young people of this province and country to spread the truth about HIV/AIDS, its prevention and treatment. I call upon the youth to actively participate in all community projects that seek to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and care for those infected or affected by the disease.  We will not stop the pandemic by just shouting about it, without being directly involved in all Community Projects that are set up to prevent the spread of it or to assist those who are infected or affected by it. 

I also urge the IFP Youth Brigade as a bona fide role player in youth affairs to call upon the national and provincial governments to project an image of unity on HIV/AIDS and finally break out of their denial and inaction to deal with the pandemic adequately. But most importantly, I urge the IFP Youth Brigade to engage with our communities. Go out there and work at community level to help bring about a transformation in young peoples' personal behaviour and values!  I have already told you about the formula that won the day in Uganda. 

One of the most distressing complaints I hear from the young people wherever I go is that the youth of KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa continue to be sidelined in active and constructive participation in all three spheres of government. This is a serious charge. It runs against the grain of what we envisaged the new South Africa to be more than a decade ago. The truth, however, is that only the youth who rightly claim to be marginalised, can reverse this.  I think that during this year’s local government elections our Party attempted to address this issue.  As a result of it quite a few members of this Youth Brigade today hold important positions in local government both in this Province and in Gauteng.  Your very Chairperson is today a Member of the Legislature.  I am not suggesting that we have done enough but the little we have achieved ought to be acknowledged.  Just as we tried to do the same in addressing the gender issue, but we dismally failed to achieve what we achieved with our youth.  But it was not for lack of trying.

It is up to the IFP Youth Brigade to encourage input for local, provincial and national policies concerning the youth from the young people themselves. The IFP youth must get down to some serious work at community level. You must go out of your way to motivate the youth around you to participate in the drafting of Integrated Development Plans (IDPs), in the setting of performance goals and in service delivery oversight, at local level. 

At the same time, you must encourage your own members to participate in all the so-called government-sponsored Imbizos, Youth Parliaments and workshops, and to use these opportunities as forums to convey the IFP message and values to the public at large.  I know that some of you see them as blatant efforts by the ruling Party to canvass support.  But do not allow this to repel you.  After all the money that is being used to organize these gatherings does not belong to the ruling Party.  It is our money; it is tax-payers money.  You need have no qualms of conscience about attending and participating in full.

 Since the day we founded Inkatha in pursuit of personal liberty, social responsibility and free enterprise for the benefit of my people, I have steadfastly believed that the youth are the ultimate guarantee of this movement’s survival as a vibrant political alternative for KwaZulu-Natal and the rest of South Africa. It is now your turn to take our original message and values further. I hereby appeal to the IFP youth to spread our message of renewal and values of moral leadership to every community and area where they live. 

Likewise since the day our student organisation was established, I have known that the performance of SADESMO is essential to conveying the IFP message to the youth in South Africa’s tertiary institutions and high schools, where the IFP identifies, nurtures and trains many of its future leaders. I have always urged the IFP leadership at large - and I do so now - to empower and assist the SADESMO branches in all educational institutions according to their specific needs. 

On a practical note, I urge the IFPYB and SADESMO representatives to establish and cultivate communication ‘hotlines’ with IFP offices countrywide in order to provide up-to-date information about the Party and its role in governance to its existing and potential youth constituents in our educational institutions. 

As you know, South Africa will be hosting the 2010 Soccer World Cup. This sporting event will present us all with a unique opportunity to put KwaZulu-Natal and all Provinces of South Africa on the global map. Now is the time to quote former US President JF Kennedy and ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. In order to make the soccer tournament an enduring success, we must all pull in. There is a lot the IFP Youth Brigade can do and you should start now. 

I urge you explore all practical possibilities at community level of making South Africa a safer place for the World Cup tournament and beyond. I urge you to portray the World Cup to the youth of this Province and of this Country as an opportunity for global interaction and exchange of ideas with the rest of the world. I urge you to make necessary interventions as may be possible for the benefits of the World Cup to not only reach the youth of big cities but also the masses of rural youth. 

We all are fully aware that the 2009 elections will be a most fiercely contested battle for the heart and soul of KwaZulu-Natal and all other Provinces of South Africa. It may well be the most fiercely contested electoral battle so far. We are also fully aware that from this electoral battle the province and the country will emerge either as a stagnant one-party state or a vibrant multi-party democracy. The choice has never been defined more clearly. 

In preparation for this contest, the IFP Youth Brigade must capitalise on the IFP’s new role as the Official Opposition in KwaZulu-Natal by denouncing the ruling party’s gross maladministration of the province. I hereby motivate the IFP youth to take part in the IFP’s campaign of highlighting the ruling party's inefficiency. I trust you will find your own media opportunities for exposing their failure to deliver on their election promises across the province and the country.  And highlight as you did in connection with the Nguni cattle scandal many other instances where the coffers of the State are alleged to be pillaged by the ruling Party in this Province.  There is a general feeling after the scandals in the Department of Agriculture that so far we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.  Lets find out how true that is.  

In addition, I urge the IFP Youth Brigade to develop an international profile and, by doing so, to cultivate its global credentials. In order to consolidate multi-party democracy at home, we need to be seen nurturing fledgling multi-party democratic developments in the wider region and the world. Take the recent free and fair elections that took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after 40 years of misrule. 

On Tuesday at the President’s State Banquet for the Governor-General of Canada, I sat next to Professor Mary Coyle, the Head of the Coady Institute.  We were both excited to sit next to each other as she had a list of graduates of the Coady Institute.  She is the Director of the Coady International Institute at St Francis Xavier University.  As it happened she had a list of Graduates from South Africa some of whom were sent there by myself such as Ms Eileen KaNkosi-Shandu, Ms Thoko Zungu, Mr Vincent Ngema, the Honourable Mr Ben Skosana and others .  We discussed the fact that there is even more need now for some of our young people to go to an institute like that.  You saw how Ms KaNkosi-Shandu put to use the knowledge she acquired at this institute.  I wish that we could make more use of the knowledge that our graduates acquired at this Institute.  That might even open doors for others to be admitted there.  

I would like to see the IFP Youth Brigade take an active part in such developments. We need to congratulate the peoples of the DRC on reaching a milestone in the advance of democracy in Africa. We also need to give credit where it is due and applaud the international community in general and the South African government in particular for the invaluable support they rendered to the people of the DRC in ensuring the consolidation of democracy in their Country.