FNB AND THE ANC ARE BOTH WIDE OF THE MARK, BUT THE YOUTH ARE ON POINT

It was all a little predictable wasn’t it?

Once again, the slightest whiff of implicit criticism proves too close to the bone for the ANC and the ruling party gives itself away by getting all riled up and crying ‘treason’, backed up by, among others, a Malema-free Youth League that is now dying to regain the favour of Big Daddy Jacob Zuma.

A short and sharp media storm ensues, followed by the inevitable comedown, and before you know it everyone is bored by the whole thing and nobody remembers or cares where it all began anymore, or what might have been lost along the way.

This time, in case you have been hibernating for a couple of weeks, it was the FNB Marketing Directors taking the flak and being forced to grovel for forgiveness after the furore around their latest ad campaign called ‘You Can Help’ which supposedly represented the voices of real young South Africans and their hopes for the future of the country, including, notably, an end to “corruption” and “petty politics”.

Much of the discussion around the campaign has been a sort of game of ‘true or false’. The main TV ad itself featured a 17 year old girl standing on a stage in Soweto and reading out her wishes in front of an apparently live audience, who then burst into uproarious applause as the motivational music crescendos in the background. (www.youcanhelp.co.za) FNB has said that the girl was a paid actress, but that her words were formed from some kind of combination of 1,360 real testimonies given by unpaid school children in the Western Cape, Guateng and KwaZulu Natal. But debate continues as to how these children were screened, whether they were paid, how real a representation of their sentiments the advert was, and as to how representative they were of wider youth feeling in South Africa.

Whatever the case, throwing the ‘treason’ tag at it all might be stretching it a little far, especially because at no point is the ANC ever actually mentioned in the campaign. It certainly is telling (and a little childish) that the party should so vocally assume the role of an angry and besieged victim when no remarks were explicitly or directly levelled at it. The whole thing almost made one a little nostalgic for the good old National Party rhetoric.

But if the ANC wasn’t actually being directly criticised by the campaign it has certainly come under heavy fire across the twittersphere from much of the South African public for its heavy-handed response to the campaign and all-too-familiar tendency to fall back on censorship. Meanwhile, many critics of the ANC have suddenly been holding FNB up as some sort of Messianic mouthpiece for the nation’s disgruntled but determined and hopeful youth.

But such plaudits are wide of the mark. FNB is not going to help change South Africa, or at least not through its adverts. As we have seen, these kinds of controversial adverts all too quickly lead to a catfight between the company making them and the ANC. Meanwhile, the voices of the youth that FNB was supposed to be helping to bring to the fore are rendered almost obsolete. These young people are mere “proxies” for FNB’s own aims, we are told; like brainwashed child soldiers being pushed into battle without really knowing who or why they are fighting.

It appears to me particularly poignant that the young people who actually spoke in the adverts have been notably silent in the aftermath of the whole debacle, drowned out by the furore of the big boys, thanks in part, we assume, to the much greater weight afforded these heavyweights by the mainstream media. Even when the young people from the campaign have occasionally been mentioned, it has been FNB representatives or reputed (often meaning middle-aged) media pundits supposedly speaking on their behalf.

Overall then, whether they really had more noble intentions or not, FNB’s actions have drawn little attention to anyone but itself, whilst once again the ANC has shown that if there is one service it can consistently deliver it is the swift suppression of freedom of expression. And again it is the youth who would appear to be the sacrificial lamb on this familiar altar.

As a young professional who both cares deeply about and retains an unshakeable faith in the future of South Africa and the generation of young South Africans who will help shape that future, I cannot deny that I have found the whole thing incredibly frustrating and counterproductive from start to finish. But I want to insist here that getting despondent about it is just as fruitless.

I work for a movement called Supernews which serves both as an alternative media space for ‘inspiring news’ and solution-based journalism and as a multimedia platform for young people to be heard. Supernews allows aspiring journalists, photographers, thought leaders and problem-solvers to cover, comment on and actually publish the news from a different angle, and these young South Africans can also propose their own innovative ideas of how to improve our country themselves.

With all this in mind, every year Supernews runs an event for students called Super Stage which could perhaps be best summed up as Idols for student social entrepreneurs and innovators. The top 10 entrants (voted for) are quite literally given a stage in front of a packed house and a judging panel of various prominent figures in the field to present their problem-solving concepts/ideas/action plans. The winner is given a ‘Super Prize’ to assist them in making their idea actually happen – which ultimately translates into SUPER news/inspiring news.

Through working with Supernews and witnessing the Super Stage events, I have been inspired by a young generation so often referred to as a “ticking time-bomb” or the “lost generation”. Every day I meet optimistic and highly-driven teenagers and young adults from a range of different backgrounds who are teeming with opinions, ideas and – most importantly – potential solutions to South Africa’s problems.

Above all, Supernews has shown me that these young people don’t need anyone else from different positions of status or different age brackets either to speak for them or to push them to speak out. What they need is their own platform; a largely autonomous and self-operated tool that allows them to squeeze through doors that are otherwise so often closed in their faces, whether it is in the mainstream media, municipality buildings or corporate offices.

With regards to the recent spat, neither the FNB nor the ANC have in any way positively contributed towards such an eventuality. Striving for a greater level of coalescence and dialogue between the state and the private sector in future would be a step in the right direction, but this certainly does not seem likely any time soon. For now it seems the youth are best off continuing to fight their own battles. And as far as I am concerned they are doing a pretty good job considering the odds stacked against them.

I could end off with the trusted tactic of a stirring quote from Nelson Mandela, or something from Frantz Fanon about how every new generation must come to define itself. But using the words of old or dead men, however great, seems to be somewhat antithetical. It’s time to let the youth have the final say.