The Fifth African Development Forum (ADF-V)
Youth and Leadership in the 21 st Century

16 - 18 November 2006
UNCC, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Young People and Leadership

Fulfilling the Forgotten Promise

Statement by Dr Salim Ahmed Salim

The liberation of Africa from colonial and racist rule was a triumph of the young. Looking back after more than forty years, it can be difficult to recapture the energy, enthusiasm and optimism of the years in which the struggle for independence culminated in the liberation of the greater part of the continent of Africa. Here in Addis Ababa, we have the benefit of the reminder that it was in Africa Hall, in this very compound, that the leaders of the newly-independent nations of Africa came together to found the Organisation of African Unity. We have the murals painted at the time and the commemorative photographs.

I implore you to look at those pictures and look at the faces of Africa's leaders at the moment of independence. They were young. They were much younger than any of the leaders of the African continent today. One reason for that is simple—in many cases they are the same people, just forty-three years older, though not necessarily that much wiser.

The independence leader of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, was just 32 years old when he united the different nationalist movements in one single party; he was forty years old when he became Prime Minister and 41 when he became first President. Part of his extraordinary generosity of spirit was his readiness to appoint young people to positions of high responsibility. Salim was just 22 years old when he was appointed Ambassador to Egypt, one of the key diplomatic portfolios of the country, and 28 when he was sent to represent his country at New York. He was the beneficiary of wise and generous policies towards young people, and it is only right that we should emphasize just how important it is that political rights and opportunities for leadership must be provided to Africa's youth today.

His career was not exceptional for that generation. Kwame Nkrumah was in his thirties when he was general secretary of the Gold Coast Convention. Amilcar Cabral became leader of the movement to liberate Guinea Bissau when he was 32 years old. Patrice Lumumba was just 34 when he became leader of the newly-independent Democratic Republic of Congo, for a tragically short period of time. Ahmed Sekou Toure became President of Guinea at the age of 36. Nelson Mandela was 38 when he was arrested and charged with treason: he already had a long history of political activism behind him when he was sent to prison for what became the longest and most celebrated jail term in our continent's history. Mwalimu Nyerere, in gaining high office when forty, looks like a late starter by comparison.

Let me emphasize again, that our continent of Africa won its liberation through the efforts of the young. It was our finest moment and the crystallization of all our hopes. In the words of Kwame Nkrumah, we had won the political kingdom. We held our the promise that our continent could unshackle itself from the chains of colonial rule and achieve the social and economic development for which its people had yearned. But national independence manifested something else too, something that is easily overlooked with the passage of almost half a century. The social and political movements that struggled against colonial and racist rule were overwhelmingly parties of the young.

Each of the leaders I mentioned, whose political careers resulted in high office in their thirties, had begun their struggles in high schools, colleges and during their apprenticeships. Their comrades in struggle were also the youth. When the Italian colonists lowered the flag in Mogadishu, they handed over the government to the Somali Youth League.

What we neglected in those years, of course, was the liberation and leadership of women. The equality and emancipation of women was there in our rhetoric, but it is only fair to say that we fell far short in our practice. Liberation was for both sexes, but only men enjoyed its first fruits. That is a historical wrong that must be put right, and put right without delay.

The prominence of the young was clear in the civil struggles that yielded peaceable liberation in countries such as Ghana, Senegal and Tanganyika. Still more was it true of the armed liberation struggles that brought freedom to Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. If the leadership of South Africa's liberation struggle were entering what would normally be considered retirement age at the time of that country's liberation, that was only because overcoming Apartheid took so many long years. Recognizing the importance of his young followers, Nelson Mandela proposed that South Africa's first democratic constitution reduce the age of enfranchisement. The proposal was not adopted, but it was a genuine and bold effort to reciprocate the trust that the country's young revolutionaries had placed in the men and women who had led their struggle for more than a generation.

Liberation was the promise of a young Africa, the promise that there would be, always, “something new out of Africa.” While it drew upon African traditions, independence was also an uprising of the younger generation. It was a new dawn, not a return to the past. This promise of youth enfranchisement was in fact one of the most fundamental pledges of liberation, but over the years it has been the most neglected. Many of the hopes of independence have been disappointed over the succeeding decades. One of these disappointed hopes is the promise of empowering the young generation. African cultures are respectful of age, and our leaders have exploited the symbols of fatherhood, wisdom and experience to the full, often presiding over static governments out of touch with the rapid pace of change. They are often keen to cite the tradition of obedience to one's elders. But this is only one side of the story. There is a tradition, equally vibrant, of generational renewal. This was not just a historical accident of the independence generation. Equally it was true of the first resistance to imperial conquest and the domestic movements for renewal such as the Fulani Jihads, the Sudanese Mahdists and countless others.

How can we revive our tradition of youth empowerment and leadership, and fulfil our promise of independence?

First we must recognize that Africa's young people have already demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for achievement, for triumph over very difficult circumstances. The last twenty years have been especially hard, as the continent has suffered under economic austerity and hardship. Educational opportunities have been dwindling and the possibilities for young people to obtain an independent livelihood have been shrinking. In addition, youth have faced the challenges of multiple armed conflicts, governments that are out of touch, and the scourge of HIV and AIDS.

Africa's youth have survived these hardships and difficulties. This continent's young people have again proved their ability to surmount impossible obstacles. This gives them an impressive resilience and self-confidence, including a readiness to assess and criticize the record of the last forty years, and to start afresh where that is needed.

Our young people can surmount these challenges. We must recognize and build upon the strengths of our cultural traditions alongside our commitment to a future of progress. One of Africa's proudest traditions is of social and cultural tolerance. African societies have welcomed strangers and embraced diversity. Ours is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious continent. Most of our, Countries, have citizens who adhere to the Muslim and Christian faiths in approximately equal numbers. Our host country, Ethiopia, which has approximately the same proportions. All of our Countries have the proudest traditions of multi-cultural and multi-religious citizenship.

This is a tradition to be nurtured and passed down to the next generation. In the news media and in the simplistic portrayals of our continent that are too prevalent, it is easy to draw the conclusion that people of different ethnic groups and different faiths cannot live together, and are bound to come into conflict. If young people listen only to these messages, for sure they will come to distrust and fear their neighbours who follow different religions. We must spare no effort to ensure that this disastrous path is not followed. Our elders must make sure that the tradition of inter-religious tolerance, of multi-cultural citizenship, is passed to the next generation, and is enhanced. For their part, our young people too must reject the hateful calls of extremist and intolerance and recognize that leadership in Africa, is leadership of ethnic and religious plurality. Our diversity is source of strength and symbol of our beauty.

This is the meaning of citizenship: that the rights and duties of the individual are founded in his or her citizenship of the nation. The struggle for Africa's liberation from colonial rule—the struggle of my generation—will mean nothing if it does not result in equal citizenship rights for all in this generation and coming generations.

But citizenship is more than equal rights. Citizenship is also a mutual respect and a common purpose. As citizens of African nations—and increasingly, as citizens of a common, united Africa—we must learn to trust one another. In the current climate of division and anxiety, it is too easy to expect the worst from one another. And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: if we keep one another at a fearful distance, the result can only be mutual suspicion, and worse.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of education. Young people have a right to an education: it is one of the most fundamental of human rights. But young people also have a duty to be educated, to invest in themselves, for their own future and for the future of their countries and Africa as a whole.

The most important education is education for citizenship, learning and internalizing the values that can make our nations peaceful, tolerant, vibrant and prosperous. Young people are citizens under the law. Young people are entitled to realise the full range of human rights. But these laws and rights do not exist in a vacuum; they are not simply relations between a state and atomised individuals. What makes these rights meaningful is common citizenship, with all the duties and responsibilities this entails. And in turn, citizenship cannot be expected to flourish without nurturing, without education and dialogue between the generations.

Africa's leaders have the primary responsibility for allowing Africa's youth to participate as full citizens. It is essential that our heads of state and government—so many of whom benefited from the openings provided to ambitious and capable young people a generation ago—also open up their countries and governments to the full participation of younger people. Our regional and international organisations should do the same thing.

There are many reasons—too many in fact—for young people to be fearful about the future. What I see across this continent, however, is irrepressible optimism and a realistic determination to grapple with the problems and challenges of the present. That optimism and energy is the most salient characteristic of the young, and it is a resource that our continent must harness if it is to claim the 21 st century. Young people have amply shown their resourcefulness. They need to grapple with challenges that older generations had no inkling of, such as climate change and AIDS.

Young people face enormous challenges. I am confident that you will reciprocate the trust that their elders place in you. You face daunting responsibilities but I have no doubt that you can meet every challenge. You have a responsibility to value your own lives and futures, and to invest in yourselves. You should not squander your precious energy. You must seek an education and every opportunity to fulfil your potential.

The fifth Africa Development Forum is a historic recognition of the forgotten promise of liberation, that it would enfranchise the young. This promise has been recognised very late, but better late than never.