Jonathan Jansen: The kids are going to be okay

05 August 2010 - 00:50 By Jonathan Jansen
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Jonathan Jansen: If you ever harboured any doubts that South Africa had a bright and prosperous future, this past week would have blown you away.



After speaking to young South Africans in high schools from Potchefstroom and Klerksdorp in the dry north western regions of the country, to the idyllic town of Paarl in the Boland and Rondebosch in suburban Cape Town, I can assure you that you can relax. It will go well with us.

Geesie Theron is much smaller and leaner than her twin sister at DF Malan High School. You forget the troubled name of the school quickly when you meet this amazing young South African. I stretch out my hand to greet the small teenager, but there is no response.

The young woman is blind, a condition brought on by an inoperable tumour on her brain. Your mistake would be to feel sorry for Geesie, or to rush to embrace her; I make both mistakes.

Within seconds, Geesie takes over the conversation and with an unbelievable optimism and zest for life told me about hope, determination and the learning that comes through suffering. I can literally feel the goose bumps rise on my brown skin.

The night before I addressed the Paarl Youth Initiative, a project by farmers in the Boland to invest heavily in extracurricular learning opportunities for mainly the children of farm labourers.

From grade 8, farm children are exposed to writing, museums, life skills, career preparation, public speaking and other kinds of confidence-building activities. And it shows. The first grade 12 group to come through this programme received and introduced me to the community packed into a hall on the lower end of the Paarl Main Road, long after you pass the fancy rich schools.

All those common images of farmers who abuse their labourers - that singularly misleading narrative of white-black relationships on farms - explodes into mythology as I watched these proud, confident and highly articulate black teenagers present themselves on the platform.

Rarely had I ever seen such youthful promise and potential anywhere in the world. For a few moments standing before the audience, I could not speak. I swallowed water to conceal the lump-in-the-throat feeling.

Onto one of South Africa's most distinguished public high schools in South Africa. I was waiting my time to speak, when a young man with one hand in his pocket strolled over to me completely unconscious - unlike most teenagers - of his peer group watching.

"Are you Professor Jansen?" he asked with an easy confidence you will seldom find among grade 10 children even here at Westerford High School.

"Yes I am," I said chirpily, with what he must have read as a bemused smile. But the real shock came with his next expression; leaning back slightly, he takes his time to say this: "I would like to thank you for defusing that racial situation there at the University of the Free State!"

He does not grovel, and he is not intimidated. Nor does he cross the thin line between confidence and arrogance, like so many self-assured kids whose parents have too much money.

Too often the media narrows our focus on political youth, those angry, bitter and unreflective young men who dominate the public discourse in South Africa. They are a minority whose passions are fuelled by adults in major political parties; they have no ambitions for education (let alone service), but place their only hope of income in political positions and the scavenger opportunities that come with such elevation. That is why their meetings are so violent, their language so spiteful, and their contests so intense. It's not simply about positions; it's about pap.

Look beyond this motley crew.

There are millions of young people in our school systems who are decent, respectful and idealistic about their country and its future.

They behave like the teenagers described in the stories above. They want something to look forward to, but more importantly, they want to be the difference that they seek in their land.

The last word goes to Zama, a beautiful and composed young woman who was adopted into a large and loving family.

I saw her years ago, at the end of a long nightmare of neglect and abuse. But she worked her way through school into the university studies in the biological sciences.

Tears streamed down her face as she heard that she would now be able to study medicine at a leading university in the middle of the country.

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