Chairperson, hon colleagues, my name is Ian Ollis and I am here to recruit you! [Laughter.] The youth of South Africa need you, they need us, often in ways that we do not really expect or anticipate. They need role models to follow in order to understand their place in the world and, boy, do we often disappoint them!
The hon Malale did not like the fact that my colleague used one newspaper reference. Well, let me give him another one. This weekend the hon Deputy Minister of Transport, who has not bothered to stay for this debate on the youth, in exasperation at the landslide defeat of the ANC in by-elections in the Western Cape, said:
The (by-election) results are another warning to us. I think there have been very serious mistakes from the side of a certain organisation that is a league of the ANC ... or certain personalities in there.
Of course, the leaders of the ANC Youth League have been calling for the destruction of property in the Western Cape, which is appalling.
Maar dit is net een voorbeeld van die manier waarop die jeug deesdae teleurgestel word. Die VF Plus, wat ook nie hier is nie, sowel as sy bedmaat, die ANC, trek die jeug agteruit deur hul herhaaldelike verwysings na die verlede se probleme. Hulle het albei 'n patologiese verslawing aan die pyn en swaarkry van apartheid.
Daar is net drie woorde wat oorbly in die ANC se woordeskat - apartheid, Polokwane en rassisme. En hulle herhaal dit oor en oor en oor in hierdie Huis totdat die jeug die televisie se afstandbeheer gryp en die kanaal verander!
Die VF Plus is in dieselfde posisie. Hulle gee die jeug niks om na uit te sien nie, want hulle hak vas in die verlede. Dit is eintlik geen verassing dat die VF Plus en die ANC so heerlik saamwerk in die regering nie. Hulle leef die rasse-nasionalisme van die verlede uit - presies wat ons jeug nie nodig het nie.
Wat ons wel benodig is leierskap wat die jeug 'n droom gee van 'n toekoms waarin hulle kan glo. Sal dit nie wonderlik wees as ouers in hierdie land ons kinders hoop gee vir die toekoms nie?
In November verlede jaar het 'n vriendin van my, wat in 'n township grootgeword het, my in 'n restaurant vertel sy staan op die punt om na Londen-toe te vertrek. Haar redes was nie wat ek verwag het nie. Sy het ges dat sy baie na aan haar ouers is, maar hulle leef in die verlede, en hulle kan nie aan die rassisme van die apartheidstyd ontkom nie. Sy kan dit nie meer vat nie, daarom verlaat sy die land. Sy het in Londen nou werk gekry. So verloor Suid-Afrika nog 'n belowende, jong, swart uitblinker wat hierdie land kon maak werk. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[This is only one example of the disappointments the youth have to suffer these days. The FF Plus, who is also not here, as well as its sleeping partner the ANC, is pulling the youth down with their repeated references to the problems of the past. They both have a pathological addiction to the pain and suffering of apartheid.
There are only three words remaining in the vocabulary of the ANC - apartheid, Polokwane and racism. They are repeating those words over and over again in this House, until the youth grab the remote control of the television in order to change the channel!
The FF Plus is in the same position. They are giving the youth nothing to look forward to, because they are still stuck in the past. It comes as no surprise that the FF Plus and the ANC are working so well together in government. They are reliving the racist nationalism of the past - exactly what our youth does not need.
What we do need is leadership that can give the youth a dream of a future in which they can believe. Would it not be wonderful if parents in this country could still give our children hope for the future?
In November last year a girlfriend of mine, who grew up in a township, told me in a restaurant that she is on her way to London. Her reasons were not what I expected. She said that she is very close to her parents, but they are living in the past, and they cannot steer away from the racism of the apartheid era. She cannot stand it anymore and that is why she is leaving the country. She got a job in London. Hence South Africa loses another promising, young, outstanding African who could have helped to improve this country.]
Chairperson, parents and grandparents who are still holding onto the pain of the past do not have a free and open hand to grasp the opportunities of the future.
Another friend of mine told me last week that his grandmother has just declared that when the 2010 Fifa World Cup is over she intends burning down the house and the spaza shop of the illegal immigrant family that live at the end of the street! She feels that these illegal immigrants are taking job opportunities and housing space away from true South African families.
This kind of behaviour does not set a good example to our youth and it is, then, not surprising when we get the behaviour that the hon Deputy Minister of Transport, who is not here, was referring to this week. Shame!
So, I am here to recruit you to rise above the suffering of the past, to tell our young people about the extensive goodwill in this country, and to tell them that there are opportunities out there waiting for them so that they can excel. They can start new businesses, like Mark Shuttleworth did, and make it big in the international arena. They can succeed, like the 1995 South African rugby team did. They can build South Africa's first satellite and launch it into space, as they did at Stellenbosh University with the Sunsat project.
I am here to recruit you to set an example by telling our youth that they can and that they will succeed, and that their generation will rise above what we have done and break those racial chains of the past. They will inherit a truly equal-opportunity society. Now, let us go out there and build it! I thank you.