Standing up with the oppressed

From Insight 1

To stand in solidarity for me means standing in the streets with the wool and mohair farmers and the youth.
We must stand with the wool and mohair farmers and the youths facing the police in their riot gear. We must stand and march with them and not to be afraid of their anger, not to be afraid of their pain.
I stood and cared less about my own feelings and more about theirs. I stood and listened to their stories and believed them. I stood with the wool and mohair farmers and the youths and therefore allowed the world to see I was standing with them. That’s solidarity for me my fellow countrymen.
For me solidarity is being willing to stand up with someone when they are under attack because an injury to them is an injury to you.
Make no mistake: the unjust wool and mohair regulations, the disinvestment in education and youth unemployment will be on the ballot in the next elections — and the stories of suffering that I listened to last week remind me just what’s at stake!
There’s Mathabiso Pitso from Mantšonyana, a widow raising her children alone for the past 12 years. She has been surviving from wool and mohair sales.
The husband left her with 600 goats and 400 sheep. Today she has 1 500 goats and 1 000 sheep. She has two daughters and a son. Both her daughters are studying at South African universities and they are not sponsored by the National Manpower Development Services (NMDS). She has been paying for them in the past three years.
However this year has been very difficult because she still has not gotten her payment from last year’s harvest of wool and mohair. Her future and that of her family is uncertain.
Telang Mariti is a young man who has been unemployed for the past five years. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Public Administration. He is unable to pay back the NMDS because he does not have a job. He cannot further his studies because he owes the NMDS.
These stories are heart-breaking and far too common. This is the reality of our current wool and mohair industry and our youths – an industry that Prime Minister Thomas Thabane and his ABC leadership in Parliament have broken and refuse to fix.
It does not help to complain silently nor post our frustrations on Facebook or twitter. The only way that we will be able to ensure that the wool and mohair industry and the massive problems affecting our youths are fixed is by electing forward-thinking people not pensioners.
However, I was shocked that leaders of political parties failed to show up at the youth protest march. Last week I applauded and defended their heroic act of standing in solidarity with the wool and mohair farmers. A week later I am disgusted by the same leaders who failed to participate in the young people’s protect march.
Should we conclude that their absence means that they don’t care about the plight of young people? Should young people conclude that these leaders don’t care about them? These leaders make young people the topic of their discussions but they fail to show up at the young people’s protest march.