My heart goes to the enormous challenges faced by black South African millennials (1982-1995) and born frees (1994- to date). These challenges are in addition to their generational challenges which I classify as those of their own doing or, at least, those over which they have a great measure of control.
This group is caught within a triangle which makes it very difficult if not impossible to escape.
At the top of the triangle is lack of ethical leadership.
On the left is lack of creative or enterprising leadership.
On the right is lack of economic resources.
Never in my experience have I ever heard of a liberated people who must fight to emancipate themselves from failures of others before they start to look at how they can release their potential.
The ethical leadership manifests itself in the following practical ways, at least:
· Failure to provide this group with a proper education system that equips them for the future.
· Failure to deal with corruption decisively so that resources of the country are not squandered.
· Failure to embed a culture of accountability as this creates an impression that failure has no consequences.
On the left:
· Adults continuously blame government and shift their responsibility of parenthood.
· Able bodied adults who don't want to do anything for themselves (they don't even want to paint by themselves a house given to them by government).
· Adults who refuse to explore other possibilities for survival when traditional means are no longer viable ( e.g, who wants to go back to plough the fields when jobs are no longer available in the mines)
· Adults who have eroded the black traditions and values and have passed nothing to the next generation.
On the right:
· False expectations are being created that if people spend enough time at hotel lobbies waiting for or discussing deals, wealth will come soon.
· Our white compatriots who are still by far the captains of industry unwilling to give this group any opportunity.
· Endless and meaningless discussions about rich black people instead of acknowledging that wealth has not shifted at all from our white compatriots.
· Lack of bold steps by those in authority to embark on serious programmes to help this group with economic means (not grants) so they can take their chances.
I hope these millennials and born frees will understand what Steve Biko meant when he wrote “Black man you are on your own".
NOW, BLACK MELLENNIALS AND BORN FREES, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.
