Fasihah Hasan: Angry youth will save SA

Young radicalism is the future of democratic social justice, if the new wave of young political activists becoming lawmakers is anything to go by.

And for “born-free” politician Fasihah Hassan, who was acclaimed for her role during the nationwide youth revolt for free tertiary education, an angry and impatient youth is the best thing for South Africa’s democracy.

Born to United Democratic Front (UDF) activist parents at the dawn of democracy in 1994, Hassan says she and her peers have a different and necessary perspective on the ills that face the country. It’s the more urgent and immediate sense of purpose that drove the #FeesMustFall movement.

“The world is not a fair place and it’s our job to make it more fair. But once you understand that the world is unfair you understand that all that anger you have is important, but it needs to be channelled,” she says.

Speaking just days before her inauguration as an ANC member of the Gauteng legislature, Hassan says making the transition from student activist to politician, to policy maker has not been an easy road to travel.

“It has been a long and difficult journey which people don’t see. People see the front of the house. They don’t see what’s going on behind the scenes back in the kitchen, so to speak. But I seriously believe the kind of student activism we were doing before and during #FeesMustFall has played a huge role in shaping how I think and deal with the issues.”

As an ANC Youth League branch leader herself, Hassan is not afraid to criticise the organisation that moulded her, saying it was necessary for change in the ANC to be driven from within.

“The difficulty with the older generation is that they see the issues, but they would rather only bring it up internally. Whereas with us, as much as we have a sense of belonging in the ANC, it doesn’t prevent me from criticising where I have seen wrong.”

And with the layers and layers of internal structures, age groups and the gender factor, a young woman might not have risen so quickly into leadership in the ANC 10 years ago, but the ANC elders are beginning to hear young people, Hassan says. She admits that some of the youth disillusionment at the ANC evidenced in the last two elections could be attributed to the weakening of the ANCYL over the past decade.

However, she says channels for young people to be heard within the mother body have improved and have put young women in more meaningful platforms, such as the Young Women’s Desk.

“When we talk about renewal, it’s not just about the president, it’s from the bottom up. And in terms of us renewing youth structures, I don’t think a lot of people know about the Young Women’s Desk, but it is an incredible structure of the ANC because there was a vacuum in the youth league.”

So, what can young people bring to policy and law making, now that #FeesMustFall heroes have entered parliament and legislature? A sense of urgency, she says.

“I am part of this millenial generation and often hear criticisms of ‘you guys just want instant gratification. You guys are so impatient – you don’t want to work for things’. And my honest answer to that is that impatience is what forced change in the #FeesMustFall movement and brought us free education. It was because we were not willing to accept that this is okay.”

Young people also tend to have a more nuanced understanding of issues such as globalisation, technology and climate change and how it affects them, she says.

“If you look at climate change, when we take the land back and our climate changes and the land is not arable, that piece of land will mean nothing to us. It’s not this far-fetched elitist concept. We need to link it to the question of land. We need to link it to the question of food security.

“In the economy, we are looking at the fourth industrial revolution, but we are training people for jobs that are not going to exist 20 years from now. So I think young radicalism is the best part of this thing.”

– simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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