After the rather comical spat between a former youth—kijana—and leaders of his current youth wing, Umoja wa Vijana, I have decided to look at the word “youth” itself this week. I will come back to the spat later on but, first of all, it would be good to give a little background.
I was once chosen to attend an international youth meeting, to observe and write its report. At that meeting, there were doctors, university lecturers, successful entrepreneurs, engineers, artists and writers—highly successful people from every walk of life but, for the purpose of this meeting, “youth,” young people.
They were not being defined by their success or talents but by a biological marker of their time on earth. And the point was made by a senior diplomatic observer who marvelled at the levels of thought and wisdom displayed by these “young people.”
Similarly, having worked with young people for most of my life, I facilitated the participation of “children” from 11 African countries at an international meeting on children and HIV in Tanzania. A child is a person below 18 under Mainland Tanzania’s Law of the Child Act, while the African Youth Charter defines youth as people aged 15 to 35; some young people therefore fall within both descriptions.
They discussed together and developed their own presentation to the meeting, which was read by a high-school student from South Africa. After her presentation, the “adults” in the room openly questioned whether the children had developed it themselves or whether adults had written it for them.
To which the young South African devastatingly responded: “If you wanted us to talk like five-year-olds, why do you send us to school?”
End of argument!
When adults panic
Thirdly, at another international meeting, this time in Ethiopia, young people were expected to give presentations: one from the group sponsored by UNICEF and one from the group sponsored by another UN agency. The young woman chosen by the UNICEF-sponsored group came to me and asked what she should write.
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I told her she was quite capable of writing it on her own, with support from the group of young people. If she wanted my view, she could show it to me after she had written it, but it was her presentation, as representative of the young people, not mine.
The other agency, unfortunately, played a dominant role in deciding what its young person should present. As a result—and I take no credit for this except for my belief that young people can speak for themselves—the presentation by that young woman was one of the highlights of the conference: sharp, witty and direct.
The presentation from the other agency was filled with the same old, same old UN jargon. By contrast, here in Tanzania, on the Day of the African Child, children were asked to give a presentation to the then president, but the ministry responsible insisted that it had to pass through its hands first.
As a result, the power and creativity of the presentation were lost. Aaaagh!
On the one hand, I can understand why adults try to control young people because they can see the devastating consequences when young people decide to act together. The youth-led Soweto uprising transformed the liberation movement in South Africa, and we are seeing young people act together even this week in Serbia, France, Albania and India. I just love the Cockroach Janta Party!
Adults are shocked by the violence, rage and destruction. But instead of looking into themselves and realising that it was the very suppression of young people that led to their rising up, they just blame young people themselves, often forgetting that they did the same when they were young.
The French wazee blaming youth demonstrations against poor education and neglect are the very people who led similar demonstrations in 1968. Those May 1968 protests badly shook the French government, though they did not overthrow it.
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Young people turn to violence when non-violent—or, actually, all—channels are closed to them. Indeed, one could argue that one of the biggest gender issues is not between men and women but between older men and younger men, since the older men have blocked all avenues of advancement for young men—and even use their often ill-gotten gains to steal the girlfriends and partners of the young men as well.
The current wave of Gen Z protest points precisely to this.
The youth business
Of course, the gerontocrats can claim that they have their “youth wings” and a few youth created in their likeness. But the truth is that, in many African countries, there has been an attempt to control young people by herding them into “official” movements led by “youths” who are old enough to be grandparents—35 years, the upper limit of youth in the African Youth Charter.
This was deliberate on their part but, I am sad to say, “youths” themselves contributed to this. I was present at the signing of the African Youth Charter.
Originally, the upper age of youth was set at 30. A group of youth from all across Africa had been invited to discuss the charter before its signing.
Unfortunately, most of them were already in their thirties, so they agreed that the upper age should be 35 so that they could go on being youth a little longer. After that, the politicians said—at least half hypocritically, I guess—who are we to go against the recommendation of the youth?
So here we can see two kinds of youth. The first are talented and often highly qualified youth who do not need the title of youth to make their way.
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Indeed, being classified as youth is often used as a way to hold them back from moving forward faster, especially in our gerontocratic systems. Such people would probably be quite happy with a reduction in the age of youthhood, since that one fact is holding them back.
The second are what I call professional youth: youth whose livelihoods actually depend on their age. They have a vested interest in extending the age of youth as long as possible because they have revelled in their power as youth and never got around to developing a real livelihood that is not dependent on a birth certificate.
Which brings me back to the spat between an ex-youth and leaders of his youth wing—does it help him fly? If his allegations about corruption are true, is it not a case of young people learning from their elders?
In The Dilemma of a Ghost by Ama Ata Aidoo, an elder comments:
Before the stranger should dip his finger
Into the thick palm nut soup,
It is a townsman
Must have told him to.
Obviously, the elder was addressing a different context. But if the youth leaders are doing what their elder claims, where did the youth learn to dip their fingers into the national soup?
And if they really are dipping their fingers, why has action not been taken against them, when corruption is actually a crime? Why have they not been reported to the police? Of course, he cannot because Pandora’s box would be well and truly opened.
The real test
But I hold no brief for these youth leaders, these professional political youth either. Young people face a myriad of problems: poor education, lack of livelihoods, unemployment, exploitation at work and sexual abuse, among others.
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Youth unemployment among Tanzanians aged 15 to 35 stood at 8.3 per cent in 2024, while informal employment accounted for 94.6 per cent of employment. There are also particular groups of young people who are exploited and abused, including domestic workers, children and young people in mines, and wamachinga; ILO research documents hazardous child work linked to domestic work, mining and street hawking.
Young people in villages are expected to work according to the whims of their elders, with no say in when and how it should be done. But when they try to speak in village meetings, they may be silenced, verbally abused and sometimes physically abused; then, when they refuse to attend such meetings, they are blamed once again.
Yet when has the youth wing ever stood up for young people as a whole and for particular groups of exploited young people? When? Can they really be called representative of youth?
Let it be clear. I am in no way opposed to youth as a whole, nor youth professionals—only the professional youth.
I think they are the most dynamic force in our society, both in numbers and talent. My recipe for economic success would be mambo yote kwa vijana.
In my work with young people, mainly in their communities, I have seen them, time and again, embrace any opportunity that comes their way and make the most of it. They are, in fact, transformed once they are given a chance to become involved.
We underestimate young people at our peril, especially in the fast-changing world of today. My knees will not allow me to run as fast as young people, and my brain is not as flexible as theirs either, to run with AI and all the other changes that surround us at present.
If you look at countries with rapid economic development, in almost all cases it is led by young people—Gen Z. When given attention and opportunities, they are not Gen Ziiiiii but Gen Zea-lous: zealous for change, zealous for development for themselves and others.
Richard Mabala is an educator, poet and author. He is available at rmabala@yahoo.com or on X as @MabalaMakengeza. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
