Three Key Themes Revisited

Earlier this year, C4L launched three blogsites, on three themes that seemed distinct, important, and recurrent in our bulletins and prayer letters over 7 years.  The trilogy includes:

1. Altruism, philanthropy and missions
2. Leadership (which frequently raises related questions around non-racialism)
3. Youth

Well, today’s Sunday Independent just made it too easy for me!  I simply cannot resist sharing with you some tasty and nourishing morsels from it…

On Youth                                                                               www.trilogy-youth.blogspot.com

There is an article by Craig Dodds called “Young bloods paint parly red”.  Here are some excerpts:

The changing of the guard has begun.  It may have been that President Jacob Zuma was not completely fighting fit when he delivered his State of the nation Address on Tuesday, but he brought into sharp focus a telling contrast between the political veterans and the young Turks now stalking the corridors of power.

“You are a man of tradition – a tradition of empty promises,” EFF commander-in-chief Julius Malema mocked.  “You can’t tell me what to say,” Malema told National Council of Provinces chairwoman Thandi Modise when she ordered him to withdraw a remark about Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande’s “factional tendencies”.  On that occasion he complied, eventually, but on Thursday evening he finally earned his ejection from the House when he refused to withdraw a statement that the ANC government had “massacred” 34 miners at Marikana.

All of this was highly distracting, and set off a social media frenzy seldom achieved by parliamentary debate.  But it is clear the game has changed and the ANC, in particular, will have to adapt.  For one thing, it finds itself in the novel position of being painted as a party of the status quo, serving the interests of white capital, as Malema put it.  It has never been attacked so effectively by a party it cannot dismiss as either inconsequential or as a remnant of the old order – its favoured method of dismantling opposition criticism in the past.

But the real Achilles heel may prove to be the age of its top leadership… we are a young country, and getting younger.  According to Census 2011, almost 60% of the population was under the age of 35.  But older ANC leaders who have waited their turn for a bite at the presidency or a spot in the higher echelons my find the ship has already sailed for their generation.