Have we benefited from youth participation?

My reflections on International youth day.

The International youth day is significant especially now when young people constitute 40% of the 7 billion global population.

Besides their numbers, youth constitute the economic active age group, emerging leadership, the today compliant - simply what others have termed the window of hope.

In countries like Zimbabwe, there is an unprecedented growth of the youth population (15-35 years), causing a "youth bulge" that communities, governments, the civil society and business sector has to comprehend.

Depending on the policies, strategies and systems that are developed to carter for this youth population, countries can either benefit or become more insecure depending on how they deliver to the demands of young people.

Given the global attention on promoting youth participation, harnessing the youth as agents of development and catalysts of sustainable societies remains an illusion.

Although global calls have been made to proclaim "decade of the youth", "year of the youth" and other internationally negotiated documents, the real aggregates of this focus are minimal.

The agenda of youth participation has resulted in a counterproductive culture were systems, regimes or structures have been created to either "feed" young people or "feed on" the young people.

There is an obvious divide of young people that have been "fed" by the status quo and those that have been "fed on".

The justified call for youth participation has created youth "activists" that have become an extension of systems, structures and regimes.

These young people participate in conferences, receive capacity building to the extent of saturation, have access to empowerment resources which they normally abuse as representatives of institutions and interests, they spend much of their time at airports than in communities they supposedly represent.

This group of young people has provided the status quo with a convenient justification that "look there are young people taking part in processes and being consulted".  They symbolise youth participation although most of their sentiments, issues and representation are not rooted in the organic affairs of "real" young people that you would find in communities.

Given that exposure, capacity building and opportunity has crafted in them an art of articulating issues, they dominate public forums and make proclamations of issues that either lack common appeal to young people or have been recycled to the extent of redundancy.

Especially now with the world of social media, there is a mediated reality that is foreign to the bigger population of young people and their discourse lack the ingenuity of real youth or is too emotive towards self gratification rather than common good to young people who are faced with high unemployment, high disease burden, a crippled education systems and political repression.

The youth movement has become a commodity for a minority youth that either have developed the tact of making convenient demands that scatter on real issues or those that can make case on how they can best represent the concerns and aspirations of young people.

The sad reality is that such platforms for articulating the plight of young people are important but unfortunately have been subject to abuse by those that have come to know the rewards of the development sector (perdiums, flights, five star hotels and visibility).

A lot of these proclaimed activists do not find time to interact with young people at the grassroots level, they increasingly distance themselves from the real young people through the convenient excuse of operating at higher levels.

The development architecture has robbed the need for a strong work ethic in these young people who no longer desire to work harder because their time is spent participating or seeking to participate in the lucrative forums.

Hope for the youth movement to become stronger is increasingly becoming difficult to foresee. Benefits from youth participation have been welcomed by those that access shifting attention from issues.

The other group of young people that has been created by the systems, structures and regimes is that which the status quo "feeds on".

This group of young people are the ones whose challenges are articulated in proposals, they are the helpless lot that need aid, support and the mercy of development, they are the "voiceless" who needs advocates and activists to speak on their behalf, they are the gullible who for a T-shirt would pose for a photo for the donor, instigate violence or consider themselves as lucky than the other.

This group of young people are the reason for aid and support not only for their direct benefit but rather for all those that are part of the supply chain. They are part of the approximately 238 million youth who live in extreme poverty of less than $1 a day; they are also the 11.8 million young people who are living with HIV or AIDS, they are the 300,000 child soldiers around the world.

They are the raw materials to the development agenda and they are the blood line to the call for participation.

Although it is their plight that we wish to address, they are marginalised from the public sphere because of real and created "barriers" of language, technology or simply clarity.

The real issue for now is how do we bridge the gap between these two distinct groups of young people especially given the corrupting tendency of the carrot dangled and the obvious stick that cautions those with access to resources to know the potential relapse into abject poverty.

The calls for youth participation have not been anchored on a sustainable model but rather they have ingeniously been created to continue serve the interests of those we sought to question. Participation is convenient and attractive but does not address the multi-faceted challenges youth face.

The youth movement has to take lessons from the women's movement that it is not participation they should celebrate but rather it is power that they should hope to negotiate.

Youth should find themselves in real positions were they are not only limited to influence an agenda but shape the direction and outcomes of development.

The Youth need to reorganise themselves for the common purpose of creating collective power based on their numbers, ideas and influence as the game changers of any future.

They need to increasingly recognise that they can also create so much power by being local but global citizens who learn from one another, create coalitions and identify how issues can be connected as dots of a common thread. 

A touch is a move, or is it?

Growing up we used to play a game called "draft" which was the closest substitute to the then elitist chess.

One of the golden rules of that game was that  “touch is a move”. This principle was adopted to ensure fairness. Each player was allowed to one move at a turn after calculating all possible scenarios. These preconditions meant each move had to be preceded by a clear understanding of implications towards winning or losing the game.

The rule was also punishment to those that misjudge and miscalculate their moves. Another rule was that if one plays wrongly their opponent will have an opportunity to punish them and have an extra chance to play, a scornful "good move".

Looking at the political dispensation today I am wondering whether the touch is a move applies especially now when everyone is either doubtful or convinced of the MDC's move of wanting to disengage from government after participating in the harmonised elections which they lost- rigged or otherwise.

The MDC has made an official announcement that they are regarding the recently held election as null and void- meaning their touch was not a move.

Going by what is circulating, news or opinions, it appears that the MDC had prior intelligence that the election was not going to be free and fair but they still went on to participate.

What then baffles anyone who cares to think differently is why did MDC participate convinced that it was going to be rigged- why make a touch and then decide not to move?

Maybe they considered a counter premise that one cannot judge the fairness of a fight without getting into the ring to fight it out. If so what gains then come from one getting into a ring with a monster fully aware that it would eat them up without even standing a chance?

Would it have been naivety on the part of the MDC that they thought ZANU PF wouldn't turn up to be the monster that they feared it to be all these years given the "intimate" relationship they had within the inclusive government?

Is it not wishful thinking that ZANU PF would at this 9th hour of their life (as symbolised by their candidate), participate in an election in which they knew would not usher victory?

The MDC should have known the opponent that they were dealing with- I think they did but the bravado of pending victory blinded them to think strategically.

The years of working together with ZANU PF should have taught them something- the COPAC experience, the outstanding reforms, the disregard of the office of prime minister, the constitutional court, the ZEC...are all pointers to what ZANU PF is capable of doing.

Or was it an issue of confidence that most people where fully behind them because they give all credit of the stability we enjoyed to MDC and rationally they will "vote for more".

The MDC has been a fierce opponent to ZANU for the last decade and it knows more than anyone that ZANU PF can adopt, create or reinvent any strategy necessary to win an election and gain "legitimacy" to rule.

You could sense it by the silence that befell the announcements of the election results that the country was mourning but unfortunately the collective emotions alone will not change the principle of a touch is a move.

MDC had an opportunity to play the offensive, they were right to demand for the voters roll before elections, they were tactful to demand reforms before the elections and they made sense to request extension of voter registration and postponement of the election. Unfortunately they still fell to the trappings- they made the touch and move.

Some feel that it was difficult to withdraw from the election given that people wanted to strongly participate and dislodge the regime.

It's fair to think so but then the dictates of strategic leadership demands that one thinks beyond the seemingly obvious.

MDC had an opportunity to sway public opinion and influence everyone to understand that they were not going to win this election under the prevailing conditions (isn't this what they are currently doing albeit a little too late-for a touch is a move).

If you ask me, people were prepared to have a prolonged inclusive government than to out rightly give power to ZANU PF as what happened in this harmonised election.

MDC had to cast its eye in the view mirror and remember how in 2008 they were supposed to assume power only to be matched by an unwanted but violent regime that changed a peaceful environment in March into an anarchy by June of the same year, all in the name of gaining political power.

We can mistake ZANU PF for anything else but not for its style of leading by polls. They will play to the gallery on anything else not elections and winning political power. Let's remember that in each passing year these guys would claim that they will go for elections even when all other indications showed otherwise- simply they had to make sure their structures remained active for the obvious.

It appears that in the false luxury of the inclusive government the MDC snoozed and forgot that there will come a time that they were supposed to make a move and that a wrong move would change fortunes.

Now can  we say a touch is not a move when SADC and the region is endorsing this election, when all we can gather as evidence is almost subjective now in retrospect, when on election day we were bubbling of an eminent victory?

As painful as it is, we have touched  and now is time to prepare ourselves into life after ZANU PF's "punishment plus good move".

Gains have been sold cheap by participating in a flawed process especially if we continue to pin our arguments on "we knew this and that" for if we knew why did we make the touch and then decide it's not a move when we should know "a touch is a move!".