Simply surviving or just doing small things: South African youth 20 years into democracy

ANTHEA GARMAN, RHODES UNIVERSITY, SOUTH AFRICA

SIMPLY SURVIVING OR JUST DOING SMALL THINGS: SOUTH AFRICAN YOUTH 20 YEARS INTO DEMOCRACY

T H E B J O U R N G R A D U A T E S S C H O O L O F J O U R N A L I S M A N D M E D I A S T U D I E S , R H O D E S U N I V E R S I T Y

1. 18 YEARS OF TEACHING: WHAT’S CHANGED?

2. THE SURVEYS: 200 (OR 100 OR 40) “INTERESTING YOUNG PEOPLE DOING AMAZING THINGS”

“Saluting media leaders: SA’s top 40

under 40s”http://themediaonline.co.za/2013/03/saluting-media-leaders-top-40-under-40s-part-one

/

“Inspired by the Mail and Guardian‘s annual

list of Top 200 Young South Africans, the Investec Rhodes Top 100 Students is an annual award for students who have excelled during their time

at Rhodes University.”www.oppidanpress.com

“The Mail&Guardian 200 Young South

Africans”http://ysa2013.mg.co.za/

Anthea: So you have a powerful interest in politics because you believe it matters in peoples lives?Thando: I think politics are a generic part of each and everyone’s lives, so you need to have the listening abilities or try to pause for a minute to try and see what they are trying to say, because it does affect you. Lets say they adopt a new law in Parliament without you being consulted and you want to know what that will imply…

Anthea: When you are tracking stuff on your email and on Facebook, what are the issues that catch your attention and that are important to you? Siya: New political parties, new laws that are being passed without even consulting people, and government speeches or statements … articles on service delivery, corruption and maladministration.

3. THANDO AND SIYAAND THEEASTERNCAPE

YOUTH IN SOUTH AFRICA

•Youth under the age of 35 constitute 70% of the population, and those under 15, 35% of the population (Statistics SA).

•3 million of the 6.7 million young SAs are either unemployed or not engaged in any education or training activities (Gower 2009).

•Youth have made up a large percentage of those engaged in protest action (Bernstein and Johnston 2007; Gower 2009).

•Youth were at the forefront of the xenophobic attacks of 2008.

•HSRC study of attitudes: “…there are in general low levels of participation by young South Africans in organised activities” (HSRC, 2005: 30). It notes that as much as 75.3% of the research sample has never participated in a community society or club.

•These events suggest that many youth are alienated from contemporary South African democratic political culture.

THEY ARE THE YOUNG LIONS

AND THE LOST GENERATION

HOW WE THINK ABOUT YOUTH

•Youth are seen as victims of adult society and in need of protection (Kurth-Schai 1988: 114).

•They are viewed as dangerous and in need of guidance or as a threat to adult society.

•They are seen as incomplete, incompetent and in need of guidance: as “learners of adult society” .

They are confronted with “confusing and contradictory patterns of protection and pressure, with conflicting perceptions of their abilities and inadequacies, rendering their social presence inconsequential and their social power invisible” (1988: 116).

MATTES’ BORN FREESTHOSE SOUTH AFRICANS WHO ENTERED THEIR ADULTHOOD AND

“CAME OF AGE POLITICALLY AFTER 1996” (2011: 4).

• The proportion of “Born Frees” increased from 5% of eligible voters in 2000 to 31% in 2008. This cohort is now just behind the Struggle Generation (43%) in size.

• Significantly, this generation is 83% black and 43% urbanised.

• This generation suffers, just as previous generations did, from low levels of education, low levels of school completion and joblessness. They live with high levels of physical and material insecurity.

• Mattes characterises the lives of the “Born Frees”, therefore as a “continuity rather than sharp generational change” (2011: 7).

•This study draws on critical perspectives on media and society that refuse to see the link between media and democratic culture as self-evident. •Commonsensical notions of the media as giving ‘voice to the voiceless’ or ‘keeping power accountable’ need to be scrutinised within the specific conditions of post-apartheid South Africa. •These conditions include high levels of social and economic inequality, the dominance of market-oriented, profit-driven media and the fragmentation of media audiences along race, ethnic and class lines.

THE MEDIA AND CITIZENSHIP RESEARCH PROJECT AT RHODES UNIVERSITY

THE PROCESS•Phase 1: A survey of nearly 1000 young people in four provinces: media use, attitude to politics, trust in institutions (in conjunction with the Sanpad-funded study undertaken by Rhodes, UCT and Media Tenor see https://www.academia.edu/4157311/A_baseline_study_of_youth_identity_the_media_and_the_public_sphere_in_South_Africa)

•Phase 2: 10 focus groups: 5 among unemployed and 5 among employed youth in South Africa’s poorest (the Eastern Cape) and richest (Gauteng) provinces (using employment as indicator of opportunity, access to media (particularly the internet and social media) and agency.

•Phase 3: Intense individual discussions with 10 participants just from the Eastern Cape about their daily lives, their sense of agency, their understanding of their citizenship.

•What the participants thought were the major problems facing youth in South Africa today,•Whether they voted and considered their votes to have power and value,•Whether they had encountered politicians on a local or national level and what they made of these encounters,•Whether they participated in community meetings about local problems and what actions they had taken,•What media they consumed and what value they placed on news,•Whether they felt the media represented their lives and issues, and•Whether news media gave them ideas for action on the problems they encountered.

THE MAIN QUESTIONS

UNEMPLOYMENT AND SURVIVALISMAcross the 10 focus groups there was almost unanimous agreement that the overwhelming problem facing the youth in South Africa is employment.

These young people are all keenly conscious that there is not enough work to go around and that having a matric certificate or even a degree is not a guarantee of work.

There is a strong sense that this situation makes young people without work feel trapped in a vicious cycle of sustaining day to day life in such a way that they can barely lift their heads to consider their responsibilities as democratic subjects.

In the case of unemployed youth this situation provokes a powerful survivalism.

VOTING AND POLITICSOn the value of playing their part in formal acts of citizenship a high proportion of both unemployed and employed participants were extremely cynical. Both groups (employed and unemployed) in all the areas spoke of having no confidence that their votes would alter their individual circumstances or the big social problems the country faces. Many felt that the vote won gave the people in power licence to improve their own circumstances.

MEDIA USEThere was general agreement that being informed is important role.

For the unemployed the news gives them a sense of the wider world which is an important antidote to their daily lives.

Generally the participants expressed surprise when asked whether they could use the media as a source for agency as citizens.

They are very critical of the big city focus of the news. They want to see themselves and their communities in the news too.

MEDIA ‘LISTENING’Questioned about whether the media spoke to them or represented them as young people, they complained about coverage of strikes, Marikana and Zuma’s wives and said they wanted more fun, entertainment, and information on how to make money.

They wanted to see something “creative” which gave them ideas for coping with their daily struggles and they definitely wanted to see less of “politicians and their problems”.

AGENCY AND ACTION

They acknowledged that moving from knowing to doing is a significant problem, sometimes it’s because the media don’t provide enough information and sometimes it’s because the coverage is depressingly devoid of ways for them to take up agency.

“It [newspaper reporting]depresses me. I get angry. I get so angry and so sad. I would like to see more positive coverage. I feel the media coach people to think what happens is OK because it generates discussion but nothing happens to address it. There is no continuity between what happens... it feels like things that happen today are independent from what happens tomorrow. What happens today has no effect on what happens tomorrow. What you do today does not matter. Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow you tackle the new problems. You can do something small today but it does not matter. You know it is not true and that what you do has some effect but because you never see any difference it feels as if you haven't done anything.”

YOUTH CITIZENSHIP IN SA“BIOGRAPHICAL SOLUTIONS TO STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS” (COULDRY 2010,

113).

“It is a very difficult question.”

“To be a good citizen.”

“But that is the problem. What does that mean? Are we good citizens?”

“Everybody lives in their own little bubble. As long as you are OK you are happy.”

“You take responsibility for the small things you can manage. To take care of the piece of your garden that is on the street. Not to put your music loud or to be considerate for the people around you. To drive with consideration so that people know you care. I drive like a responsible taxi man. (Laughter) It is important to be friendly and polite with the people around you and to treat people with respect. Treat the gardener and the car guard with respect.”

“I think it’s as well for everyone just to stay safe.”

“You are your responsibility. Do whatever is good for you. I mean don’t wait for government or look at other people to do something for you. Do whatever is good for you, whatever makes you happy.”

“You must make things happen for yourself because things depend on you.”

THE PROBLEM OF ‘CITIZEN’ AS A NEW POLITICAL IDENTITY FOR YOUNG SOUTH AFRICANS

1.Based on Kurth-Schai it seems we do not model (not in the political realm, and not via the media) the identities that young people can take up in order to be citizens.2.Based on Mattes it seems that our democratic government has been too scared of repeating the apartheid-type behaviour to engage in active education via the school system about citizenship.3.Robins, Cornwall and Von Lieres say that “histories of disenfranchisement, authoritarianism and clientelism” don’t easily give way in a new political dispensation (2008: 1071).4.The state itself doesn’t elicit new identities: Patrick Heller says: “State-society relations tend to be dominated by patronage and populism…” 2009: 126).5.Sipho Nkambule says that “for citizenship to be effective it requires institutions, procedures and arenas where it can be put into practice” (2012: 173). He points to local government in South African as an area of particular failure because this is where many rights are actually denied and people’s citizen status is diminished.

WHO CAN BE A CITIZEN?This issue of political identities affects us all in South Africa. What political identities are possible when citizenship is “fractured and fractal” (in the words of the Comaroffs, 2003: 447). I understand the question to be: “Who can be a citizen?” and to unpack that: Who can take up an identity which is not just procedural but actual and which gives the occupier the following capacities:

•the ability to speak and hold opinions;•permission to enter the public domain; and entitlement to take up a public persona, to speak on behalf of and for others with recognised authority (or to go further and speak not just on behalf of a group but as a representative South African); and•the power to influence decision-making and actions (in universalist ways and not just on narrow issues that affect the individual or group specifically).

RETURNING TO THANDO AND SIYA… 

ON THE EDGE OF MARGINAL

Thando:“I am a citizen shareholder.”

Siya: “Yes I have to vote, even though my X is not going to do any change.”

These two young men live in the townships outside the Eastern Cape’s bigger cities. They are deeply conscious of the constraints of their lives, their joblessness, the limitations of their present educational status. They have families they are responsible for. Both are connected to universities (Siya is a lab assistant at Fort Hare, Thando a student at NMMU.)

•They both ravenously and opportunistically consume media. They find ways to consume that are subsidised by someone else.•They use social media avidly: Thando has 500 Facebook friends.•They don’t necessarily trust the media or journalism.•They are deeply suspicious of all politics and parties.•They trust individuals who prove themselves to be trustworthy – both journalists and individual politicians.•They are constantly informing themselves about political developments: they want to know – how will this issue/decision affect me and my community?•They assert their citizenship through the right to know, to give trust and to debate and hold an opinion.•They have no expectations of being heard and taken seriously as young South Africans by those in power, but they still assert their “citizen shareholder” status.

How Thando and Siya see and negotiate their world

ASSERTING CITIZENSHIP BY ‘ACTING IT OUT’

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

On youthSouth Africa hasn’t decided to take its young people seriously as citizens. We treat them as incomplete people or dangerous to the social order, we don’t really take seriously their status as starter citizens with voice and agency.

We don’t put into the educational system actual content about citizenship. We don’t help them use and develop voice and agency.

On the mediaSouth African journalists have adopted an overly monitorial stance towards government at all levels. The idea of giving voice to the majority who are being robbed via the taxes being spent in profligate ways has taken the form of watchdogism on steroids.

Citizenship is glossed in many media reports, the actual content of the relationship between journalism and citizenship and the state is not engaged with.Listening to and enabling marginal citizens to get a hearing in the public domain is crucial for the media as a role.

On citizenship

It is vitally important that we keep on asking questions about what political identities the state and the regime of truth and power make possible in South Africa today.

Too narrow a range of choices of identity are allowed at present and the identity is too easily aligned with “ANC party member”, “Africanist”, “client of the state”.

It is time to demand of the state that it LISTEN (in the Bickford sense) to its people.