South African youth: Mobilising for entertainment but absent in activism

This past weekend we watched as hundreds of young people flooded the streets, chanting and celebrating the victory of a Big Brother Mzansi winner.

The passion was undeniable. Several people pointed out the glaring fact: “where are these people when we are fighting the system?”

Oh, they called us out. And they are correct.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a Big Brother fan, too. I was cheering for Sweet Guluva.

But still, what kind of youth are we? What discourse will we say we contributed to? What will we be remembered for in the history books?

Perhaps we should be unsettled by the fact that we can mobilise in our thousands for entertainment, yet we are nowhere to be found when it comes to the issues that shape our lives.

Yes, life is tough, and we need moments of joy. But what happens when the hype fades?

We come face to face with reality. You return to your small corner, still waiting for that R350 social relief of distress grant, still sending out job applications that likely won’t get a response.

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The economy and the system are stacked against you. You go back to being a nobody.

The government doesn’t care about you – in fact, the world doesn’t care. And yet, when the moment calls for it, we fail to mobilise.

We show up in numbers for a TV show. But when it’s time to vote, to demand jobs, to hold government accountable – where are we?

Are we really okay with being able to campaign tirelessly for our favourite contestant, going door to door, distributing pamphlets at our own expense, but lack the energy when it comes to bread and butter issues?

Are we okay that we’ve become so disengaged and abandoned our struggles to NGOs because we have failed to do it for ourselves?

We often hear that the South African youth are not apathetic or lazy, they just stay away because of dissatisfaction with government performance, political parties and democracy itself.

I hear that – but damn it. Imagine what we could achieve if we mobilised with the same passion for unemployment, education, gender-based violence (GBV) and corruption.

Instead, it’s always the pocket of doctors demanding jobs year on year.

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The pocket of students protesting for university access at the start of every academic year. The pocket of activists marching against GBV.

Meanwhile, we see the power we have. We feel it in moments like Guluva’s win. And yet we let it go to waste.

Last year, many of us watched young Mozambicans take to the streets in post-election unrest, challenging decades of leadership and demanding accountability.

We watched in awe at their sheer resilience. Months earlier, in Kenya, youth protests against tax hikes forced the government to shelve $2.7 billion (about R49 billion) of planned increases.

They didn’t stop there. The next step was tackling corruption and misgovernance.

We are no different from the youth in Mozambique or Kenya. Our struggles are the same.

The only difference is they mobilise when it matters. They stand up for change. We, on the other hand, mobilise for fun.

The same power we use to get on social media trends for our favourite contestant to win, to drive these viral moments – imagine if we channelled that into demanding real change.

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What Guvula’s win should show us is that our voices are not small. That our impact is not insignificant.

The history books are waiting to be written. What will they say about us?

The world is watching.