Progressive Youth Movement (PYM) activists participate in an impressive variety of grassroots struggles. In the not too distant past they joined a campaign for jobs at the newly-built Khayelitsha hospital. This included their speak-out meetings against labour brokers which helped to energize the self-confidence and resistance among large numbers of jobless workers. Today they are marching for decent housing and sanitation. Add to these militant protests is the ongoing but perhaps less visible agitation for free and quality healthcare, education and recreation facilities for all. PYM is literally fighting many battles on multiple fronts.
Almost all PYM campaigns are concentrated in Khayelistha, mainly in neighbourhoods where PYM members live. Despite the territorial limitation of these protests, it is still remarkable that a youth movement is able to sustain mobilization across such a diverse range of community issues. Other progressive mass organizations can learn important lessons from their struggle experiences. On the morning after Youth Day 2013, we joined 7 PYM militants for a follow-up conversation to learn more about their grassroots campaigns. Two members from the first interview were part of this informal discussion, giving the meeting some continuity with the last talk on the birth and early history of the PYM.
Three women members shared their own experiences from past and current battles, bearing in mind that the PYM has no ongoing gender-based campaign. One activist explained how her involvement in activities of the Women Collective Programme (WCP), a non-governmental organization active in townships, boosted her political radicalization. The WCP hosts solidarity forums for women activists from Cape Peninsula neighbourhoods. One Saturday it screened a documentary film about the Sharpeville massacre and the Langa march of 1960. It showcases the contributions and leadership of women to defeat apartheid and to the fight for a better life for all. Watching this movie has left an indelible imprint in her mind. She went on to underscore a lesson from this film for contemporary struggles: women can realize their power if they organize themselves and unite around common demands.
A Diverse Programme Of Action
The conversation started with their list of recent and ongoing campaigns. But these introductory remarks consumed a tiny fraction of a stimulating open discussion which lasted roughly 90 minutes. Activists eagerly elaborated on the reasons and history behind their protests, the core demands and relationships forged with other organizations. Drawing an overall balance sheet of their programme of action, speakers did not only highlight their victories, but also carefully reflected on the limitations and failures of their activism to date.
During its early phase, many PYM members were students at township high-schools. That was when the organization embarked on its ‘free and quality education for all’ campaign. This call to action counters the harsh realities poor students must endure. It stands in direct contrast to the myths and lies about education government promotes in its 2030 National Development Plan. Working class children in post-apartheid South Africa, speakers reiterated, attend impoverished public schools. These schools make up the bottom of the country’s two-tier system of education, thus condemning children from poor families to miserable futures: temporary work at slave-wages, unemployment, etc. Commenting on school infrastructure, comrades explained that the typical public school in Khayelitsha lacks decent amenities and proper resources – like science labs and libraries. Overcrowding of learners per class results in educator-learner ratios that sabotage education, whereas the complete opposite situation exists at schools for youth from wealthier classes in society. Transportation for learners to and from schools is rarely available, and if so, the safety record leaves much to be desired.
Coupled with the above, PYM activists launched a fierce but thoughtful attack on a cornerstone of the present schooling system – its bankrupt curriculum. What is being taught in schools, these militants said, effectively ignores the social needs and aspirations of the poor and working majority. They critiqued what is currently on offer in schools as an “anti-working class curriculum” but did not spell out the makeup of progressive alternatives. Their demand calls for a new education curriculum but they did not explain what should be done to effect this radical change. Efforts invested in building a workable alliance with Equal Education, a NGO active in the education arena, did not progress far due to unbridgeable disagreements. Relations broke down when it surfaced that the logic of the immediate action platforms of the respective organizations were heading in opposite directions- a difficult debate on connecting daily political action to ‘social revolution’, worth revisiting in future interviews.
Without a doubt, PYM has a progressive action programme on education which should resonate with students warehoused in destitute township schools. Yet, surprisingly, at the time of our interview the organization could not name any high school student in its ranks. Those who had been students when they joined PYM a few years ago are nowadays, jobseekers unable to find work. Today, the organization lacks broad and steady influence among learners in poor communities. New energy must be injected into this youth movement’s education campaign if it wants to win over a substantial student membership. Going forward, the organization will draft a leaflet on the ‘education crisis’ for mass distribution. In this regard Apdusa can offer some assistance. With the aid of this pamphlet, a series of open forums will be organized with students at targeted high schools.
The Site & Service Division (SSD) near Steve Biko Road in Mandela Park, Khayelistha, has been a hotbed of militant protests for decent housing and sanitation. PYM is very active in this informal settlement, clearly evident from its popularity among SSD residents. The intensity of the organisation’s involvement in this campaign overshadows most of its other activities. It is almost impossible to split the PYM’s activism from the socio-economic agony, injustices and state violence that trigger community rebellions. Growth in the organization’s membership was cited as a big positive spin-off from this campaign. Another immediate victory highlighted by participants in this conversation, is the replacement of bucket toilets with waterborne flush toilets.
As part of its knee-jerk informal settlement upgrading scheme government has started constructing ‘Reconstruction and Development Plan’ (RDP) housing units in SSD. One discussant lives in a backyard shack on the plot of another shack-dweller and echoed the threats this housing development poses for them. As backyarders they were excluded from government’s assessment of housing needs. Eviction of these backyarders is fuelling their indignation and resistance. Through its own research and consultation with experts, PYM has a vacant land database that is suitable for decent housing. But these land parcels do not feature in the human settlement plans on the agenda of the government initiated Khayelistha Development Forum (KDF). The youth group’s prominent ally in the fight for decent and affordable housing and sanitation is Abahlali BaseMjondolo, an alliance strengthened by their affiliation to the Democratic Left Front in the Western Cape. The alliance with Mandela Park Backyarders (MPB) is much looser and ad hoc, primarily because the territorial scale of MPB’s activism is narrowly localized.
How to unite issue-based campaigns?
Alongside these typical civic protests, the PYM continues to mobilize around its ‘jobs for all’ demand; a rallying cry which is in response to a socio-economic crisis in which three out of five jobless workers are youth. Mass unemployment is seen as a ticking time-bomb which may ignite society-wide revolts as neoliberal labour policies merely promise failed measures. As ex-members of Youth for Work, another defunct NGO initiative, campaigns against unemployment dominated the PYM action programme from the outset. To concretely illustrate their perspectives, our discussants made a lot of reference to their experiences in the battles for jobs at Khayelitsha’s new hospital.
This fight began during the construction phase of the hospital but subsequently also involved all other jobs (nurses, etc.) for the proper functioning of this healthcare facility. Coupled with its demand that at least 60% of jobs be filled with qualified workers living in Khayelitsha, PYM tirelessly galvanized resistance to labour brokers, which is at the top of the KDF job creation strategy. As this protest movement gained momentum, close ties were forged with The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) and the National Education, health and allied Workers Union (NEHAWU), both organizations of healthcare workers. On the agenda of this ad hoc coalition was uniting the fight for ‘jobs’ and quality ‘healthcare for all’, opening prospects for generalized resistance to government’s neoliberal health policies.
In light of the social plight worsened by the protracted unemployment crisis, comrades asserted that it is impossible for the fight for jobs to be an end in itself; it is a powerful unifying demand to initiate our fight against enemy number one: capitalism. To buttress their argument, they mentioned that one lesson from the 2012 revolts in the Arab world is that youth unemployment became a catalyst for social revolution even though it did not lead to a socialist overturn. Political power in these countries is still not concentrated in the hands of the poor and working majority who overthrew the autocratic ruling elites and armed forces. It is intriguing why massive trade union demonstrations against job losses, precarious employment and unemployment in South Africa over nearly two decades did not trigger similar social revolts.
Notwithstanding these unanswered questions, the militants of this youth organization understand and appreciate the necessity of a political programme to unite our struggle for genuine social progress. What is the centralizing political demand around which to construct this anti-capitalist programme? How firmly does this demand bind together the aspirations of all sections of the oppressed and exploited into a common struggle? Moreover, this demand must foster the self-confidence and self-organising capacity of the masses to seize political power. Future conversations must turn the spotlight on the longer-range political vision of PYM to better understand the logical connections they draw between their issue-based mobilizations and social revolution.
(Part One can be read on our newsletter archive – Vol. 18 No. 3)