Review: In OUR Future Campaign

Of all my blog posts, this is probably the one I am most proud of as it speaks to a vision for a bright South Africa for us ALL.

Over the last month the DA Youth embarked on a campaign to set out our vision for the future of South Africa. Termed ‘In our future’ the campaign saw the release of a series of posters on campuses, social media and on the campaign website www.inourfuture.co.za that illustrate our dreams and aspirations for the kind of South Africa we want to live in.

Through the campaign we aimed to highlight the following key themes:

·       * Tolerance for everyone, even if their life choices are different from our own,

·       * The opportunity for anyone and everyone with talent and dedication to realise their dreams no matter their background, and,

·       * Respect for the Constitution as the ultimate law in South Africa.

Here are the posters used and a description of each:

Poster 1: In OUR future you wouldn’t look twice

We have all seen them - those eyes that follow the white mother as she tends to her black child, the faces that stop to look at the white guy as he holds his black girlfriend’s hand across a restaurant table. Maybe we were even one of those who stopped to look.

Many South Africans are still undeniably fixated on race. As the DA Youth we see it every day among young people – an undercurrent of identity politics not always spoken about but always present.

This undercurrent was blown wide open by a poster we released online as a part of our recruitment drive for the DA Students Organisation (DASO). The image of an inter-couple staring lovingly into one another’s eyes with the tagline, ‘In our future you wouldn’t look twice’, was unapologetically intended to provoke debate, and provoke it did.

Comments ranged from one end of the spectrum to the other – either people hated it, one Facebook user calling inter-race relationships an ‘abomination’, others loving the fresh and controversial angle. Ironically, the vast number of comments, both good and bad, has vindicated the premise of the campaign and exposes the glaring necessity of the discussion it has provoked. It is clear that, whether we as a society like to admit it or not, the tolerance debate is not over in South Africa.

We have chosen to enter this debate with a poster that sends out a loud and clear message about the kind of organisation we as the DA Youth are and the vision we have for South

Africa, namely one in which a campaign of this nature would go unnoticed. Some people may disagree with our approach, but no-one can deny that it has achieved its goal, which was to rip the plaster off the festering issue of tolerance in South Africa and give it air to dry.

If it makes people feel uncomfortable we are all the better for it - as a youth organisation we have a responsibility to push boundaries and challenge the status quo. We are prepared to set the change agenda and will not apologise for it.

Ironically, those who are the most upset by the image are probably those who need to do the most introspection into the real reasons behind why they are uncomfortable about what is, relatively speaking, a very tame image for 2012. Claims that we are promoting promiscuity or racism say more about the individuals levelling them than anything else, as more explicit images can probably be found on the cover of magazines in the local supermarket or on prime time TV.

As stated by liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill, “No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.” Ultimately our role is to lead the youth of South Africa towards these great improvements, and with this campaign we have successfully and proudly started on that road. We will not succumb to the criticisms of today in our efforts to build the future we envisage.

Poster 2: In OUR future you won’t beg for opportunities

This forms part of the DA Youth is unveiling a billboard in central Johannesburg as a part of our youth wage subsidy campaign in order to take the struggle of unemployed young South Africans a step further.

We are taking the fight to the streets of Johannesburg where many young people are without jobs and without hope. We are taking the fight to the ANC’s alliance partners who continue to deny young South Africans the wage subsidy that could create over 400 000 jobs in a three year period.

Our demand is simple: we want a youth wage subsidy and we want it now!

A youth wage subsidy, by offering employers financial incentives to hire first time job seekers, would dramatically increase the prospects of the lost generation.

This poster, which will be erected on all university campuses via the DA Students Organisation (DASO), shows a young person begging at a robot holding a sign board saying ‘have degree, will work for food’. It is designed to highlight the experience of a growing number of young South Africans, of whom 3.2 million are unemployed and 600 000 have

graduated but are without work.

In OUR future, the state will act as a facilitator of opportunities for these young South Africans, and all people with talent and dedication will have a chance to improve their lives.

In OUR future there would be a youth wage subsidy to help young people on to the first rung of the employment ladder.

Poster 3:  In OUR future she will be the CEO of her own company

This poster serves to illustrate our vision of a country in which any and every South African with the talent and dedication to improve their lives is supported in doing so. There are currently 4.5 million unemployed people in South Africa, with 72% of them younger than 34.

The poster highlights entrepreneurship as one of the key ways to help young people achieve economic independence, and was launched at the site of one of our business plan competition finalist’s projects, Lavender in Lavender Hill. This social entrepreneurship project is a prime example of what entrepreneurship can do for the development of South African communities.

With the recent announcement that 440 000 small businesses in South Africa have failed in the last five years, it is becoming increasingly vital for government to ensure entrepreneurs are given adequate support.

Poster 4: In OUR future the colour of their skin won’t determine their success

This image highlights our vision of a future in which the melanin content of a person’s skin will have no bearing on the opportunities they are given.

Sadly, in contrast to this vision, South Africa today is a place in which race still plays a part in an individual’s prospects. As the DA Youth, we are striving towards a future in which every individual with talent and dedication, no matter their skin colour or background, has the same chance at building a better life for themselves.

This poster was launched at the University of Cape Town, where a debate is currently raging about their race-based admissions policy. The DA Students Organisation asserts that we should move away from artificially predetermined racial outcomes towards equality of opportunity in order to realize genuine redress. 

Poster 5: In OUR future the constitution will reign supreme

We launched this poster by staging a sit-in at Constitution Hill, through which we aimed to highlight the current threats posed to the Constitution and to assert our commitment to upholding it at all costs as the supreme law of our land.

In the DA’s future, the Constitution will reign supreme as the ultimate law in South Africa. There will be no person or body above that law, and it will be fiercely protected.

The current threats to the Constitution are starkly illustrated by the policy document released recently by the ANC. This document, which proposes a number of Constitutional amendments, represents the largest assault on the Constitution witnessed in our country to date and is a complete derogation of the principles of constitutional democracy. It should be deeply concerning to every South African who values post-Apartheid South Africa. 

Poster 6: In OUR future they will be free to love without fear

This one is close to home for me, so naturally it’s my favourite. The final poster in the series features prominent LGBTI rights activist Ndumie Funda and her partner, with the tagline ‘In our future they will be free to love without fear’. The poster is designed to highlight both her and many thousands of openly lesbian women’s struggle to simply live their daily lives without fear of victimization. No more starkly were the challenges that these women face illustrated than in the recent court case of Zoliswa Nkonyana, who was brutally murdered in Khayelitsha because her choice of partner.

According to research more than 10 lesbians are subject to ‘corrective rape’ both by individuals and gangs every week in Cape Town alone. Over the last ten years 31 lesbians have allegedly been murdered because of their sexuality.

As well as highlighting this serious issue, the poster also makes a statement about the kind of future that the DA Youth envisages for South Africa, namely one in which there is tolerance and acceptance of every individual, even if their life choices are different from our own.