Category Archives: Youth Day

Youth Day Drug Awareness & Talents Competition Event

Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement of South Africa Youth League Press Statement

Youth Day Drug Awareness & Talents Competition Event

We as the youth of the South African nation want to live in peace and dignity regardless of colour or race. We want to live in a society where there is free quality education and everyone can develop themselves to their full potential. We want to live in a society where there is work or an income for everyone. We want to live in a society where the social value of urban land is placed before its commercial value and cities are governed and planned democratically. Continue reading →

AbM Youth League Youth Day Statement

15 June 2015
Abahlali Youth League press statement on June 16

This year we will use the well celebrated youth month to build our own power from below through the University of Abahlali.

Our grand parents have struggled against colonialism and our parents have struggled against apartheid. Our brothers and sisters of 1976 have also struggle against all forms of discrimination and oppression. Today we wish to salute all their determination for real freedom and real democracy. While they were fighting these battles they also had a responsibility to bring us up. We feel that we have to do the same and not watch them when they have to struggle twice. It is our turn as young people to make sure that we have real democracy and real freedom today. The South African youth of 1976 contributed so dearly and paid a high price for the freedom that we continue to struggle for. Continue reading →

AbM Youth League: Building Tomorrow’s Leaders Today

14 June 2013
Abahlali BaseMjondolo Movement Youth League Press Statement

AbM Youth League: Building Tomorrow's Leaders Today

On June 16 South Africa will be commemorating the youth of 1976 who lost their lives in Soweto struggling for Justice, Freedom and Democracy. Today's youth will be told to obey today's leaders in order that we should show proper respect to those who lost their lives in 1976. But the reality is that what the youth of 1976 struggled for has not not been implemented as they have wished.

The beauty of Freedom and Democracy was supposed to be everyone. Today it is for the rich. Rich people are getting the multi-racial education and the poor still have the third-rate education which back then was known as Bantu Education. Rich people get jobs. They have cars. They have nice houses. They can get married and move on with their lives. They are safe. This is Freedom to them. The poor have to survive as we can. We go in circles and not forward. We live in shacks. We live in shit and fire. We are evicted. We have no safe and easy transport. The police treat us as criminals. They beat us if we try to organise. If you are young and poor you are treated as a threat to society and not as the future of society. Hector Peterson, Chris Hani, Steve Biko and other comrades who died for our Freedom and Democracy did not die for this. We do not respect their sacrifice by accepting that this is Freedom.

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Why Are We Still Living the Apartheid Life?

Why Are We Still Living the Apartheid Life?

I sit back and fail to understand why there are people still staying in shacks. I fail to understand why there is so much separation in this country, why there are areas for the rich and the poor. I fail to understand why we are still living the same way that we lived in the times of the apartheid era. I fail to understand why out of all the things that we said we would have from democracy we can only point to and feel so few of them. Is this what Mandela stayed 27 years for in prison? Is that what so many people struggled for in the trade unions and in the UDF?

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