Anonymous ID: f75e67 May 7, 2019, 10:15 p.m. No.6443621   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3641

South Africa elections: 'Born frees' call for change

Young generation born after the end of apartheid in 1994 wants 'real equality' in the country.

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/south-africa-elections-born-frees-call-change-190507194058591.html

 

Johannesburg, South Africa - Kabelo Mahlobogwane, 24, is among a generation of young South Africans often referred to as the "born frees", those born after the end of apartheid and the transition to democratic rule in 1994.

 

In Mahlobogwane's case, he was born a mere six months after Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first democratically-elected president.

 

But like many of his generation, Mhlobogwane feels that the born free moniker has worn thin.

 

"When I used to engage with my elders about apartheid, I actually learned that everything corrupt that is happening today is exactly what they were fighting against during apartheid. Every inequality is still here," he said.

 

Mhlobogwane was a prominent student activist in the #FeesMustFall protests that swept across South African university campuses in 2015 and 2016.

 

Primarily driven by calls for free tertiary education, he said the protests also spoke to a wider sense of disenchantment with South Africa's democratic project among young black South Africans.

 

"We want change and we want real equality, and we have been militant and unapologetic about that," he added.

 

As South Africa heads to the polls in a general election on Wednesday, Mhlobogwane believes that change comes in the shape of the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, which is predicted to win more than double the six percent of the vote that it achieved in the 2014 elections, its first year on the ballot.

 

Everything Must Fall: Anatomy of South Africa's Student Movement (2:00)

The EFF's calls for radical economic transformation, including the nationalisation of banks and mines, as well as the expropriation of white-owned land without compensation, have found fertile ground with many young black South Africans.

 

Unlike older generations, this demographic also has less of a sense of loyalty to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, based on its past liberation history.

 

"With the EFF, it's not about who was a comrade, who went to exile, who led in the forefront of the struggle," Mhlobogwane said.

 

But more than half of South Africa's youth appear to have lost faith in the political system altogether, with as many as six million under-30s not registered on the electoral roll.