Maravi

What kind of youths do we need?

What kind of youths do we need?
By Editor
Thursday March 13, 2008 [03:00]

IT is good that President Levy Mwanawasa gets very irritated when the youth are treated as mere political tools for use during the period of political campaigns. But the question is: what is Levy and his party, the MMD, doing about this? Levy’s political party is one of the major culprits in the abuse of the youths during political campaigns. And what has the MMD done over the last 17 years to change things or the way the youth are treated in the politics of our country?

The question which our politicians and their political parties need to address is: what kind of youths do we need or don’t we need in our political parties?
It cannot be denied that there is a decline in the political morality, ethics and values in our country. And we must note that this has caused considerable strain on the moral standing of our politicians and their political parties.

We need to have youths who conduct themselves in a manner that should be acceptable politically. We need youths in our politics who are selfless and are not taking or influencing decisions based on their own interest and who should subordinate their interest to that of the nation at large. We need youths who understand the broader national and international situation and who view accountability as an important duty of their political work. Our youth in politics must be rooted and grounded in society, and understand their role in transforming society.

But the issue of the type of youth we need in our politics is also tied to the issue of what type of political parties and politics we need in our country.
We need politicians and political parties that respond to the needs, aspirations and interest of the broad masses of people. We need political parties that directly mobilise our people to struggle for a more just, fair and humane society. Our political parties should be the hope of our people in ushering in a society free of injustices and unfairness.

To achieve all these things, our politicians and their political parties will need to invest a lot in developing the youths politically. They will need to ensure that their mission and objectives are deep-rooted among the youths and society at large.

One extremely worrying aspect of our political parties and our politics in general is the lack of political education for the youths, the cadres. There is need for political education among the youths that is based on the question of real life activism and linked to the political campaigns of our political parties.

We have witnessed the absence of political education and cadre development programmes in all our political parties, including the ruling MMD which Levy heads. How can things be well with the youths politically when they are not being educated politically at all?

We need to build political parties of activists and not mere members. And we should see the campaigns of our political parties focusing on issues that affect the youths. Our political parties need to focus more on campaigns that deal with poverty and unemployment among the youths.

There is a growing membership in our political parties. However, this is not reflected in the activities of our political parties. Most members and some of the leadership are not involved in the daily lives of their political parties.

There should be continuous political education programmes for members, especially the youths.
There is need to probe into some attributes of the situation and awareness of youths’ participation in our politics. There exists a certain degree of indifference to politics among the youths, which is closely intertwined with the prevalent values of the time we live in.

There is also a phenomenon that the youths’ awareness and activities in political participation appear to have split from each other. Affected by economic utilitarianism, they know the fact that political participation cannot bring them direct economic returns.

As a result, on the one hand, they recognise the systems, principles and functions of the current Zambian political operation; on the other hand, they, more often than not, take a pragmatic attitude in political participation.

Their political awareness does not coincide with the specific political activities. Nevertheless, they are not totally indifferent to the politics in reality. In fact, they are often engaged in limited participation in politics although they are only concerned about it. It is striking unparallel between their political awareness and political activities. They doubt whether real political participation can bring them true profit. Consequently, they hesitate to take part in political activities.

It is inevitable for the youths to have immature, flawed and even incomplete awareness in political participation in today’s Zambia. No country can transcend such a period on the road of development when the youths are immature in the awareness of political participation and when they are unable to understand the reality of the contemporary politics of their country. Pragmatism affects the youths’ political participation and political evaluation. Our youths’ understanding of politics is still very superficial and, by and large, their evaluation originates from their private interest.

On the one hand, this kind of tendency results from the immaturity of their character; on the other hand, it is closely related to the negative influence of economic pragmatism and utilitarianism in their mind.

In terms of social problems, they try to view and understand them realistically and try to evaluate and consider them based on their own direct interest. Yet, there are comparatively uninterested in the study of political theories. Consequently, their recognition to politics is very direct and superficial.

Individualism is very conspicuous among our youths. Our youths do not have a strong awareness of participation, and political indifference does exist in certain range. The absorption of pluralism in values and the acceptance of relativism in world outlook has given rise to a great change in our youths’ values.

The steady influence of all these values has all the more discouraged our youths’ enthusiasm for political participation. They even go to extremes to believe that it is an ideal attitude to keep a distance from politics. Meanwhile, the pluralism of youths’ values results in the different understanding of political participation. Hence, they can hardly form the same community, identity, points of view or discourse, that may exert a negative influence on their political participation.

Currently, the increasing diversity of youths’ values may give rise to their plural political mentality and views which make it impossible to form a dominant trend of thought. In a sense, the diversified political recognition and awareness will affect our youths’ political attitude and the stability of their political tendency.
As a result, we cannot have a strong cohesion in the process of development, and we cannot form a powerful political force to promote the all-round change in an effective, efficient and orderly manner.

There are no shortcuts to these. We can only address these problems by serious political education and mobilisation among our youths. But how are we going to achieve this when even the generation that is relatively much older is politically bankrupt? Who is going to be the teacher? One can only teach what one knows; one can only give what one has – no more.

The leaders of our political parties are not doing much to educate themselves politically and raise their levels of political awareness so that in turn they can teach the youths. This is the dilemma we find ourselves in politically – there is too much political bankruptcy, ignorance among our politicians. The challenge is how to change this!

Labels: MWANAWASA, YOUTHS

posted by MrK @ 3:11 AM