SOUTH AFRICA'S YOUTH IN THE MAJORITY

With the anticipated returns of Census 2011 released on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2012, South Africa is statistically presented as a practically solidly young nation, expected to grow up with its eighteen-year-old democracy.

 

The greatest of all achievements of our time was our transition from apartheid to much fabled democracy. A status that makes us other nations' equals. And we proudly take our deserved station among the universe of nations because we earned it.

 

The much fabled democracy is Lady Justice impersonated. It inspires us to chorus our republican character with historical testament, and we utter, as one Khoisan man, that "!ke e: lxarra  llke" ("diverse people unite").

 

In the Gettysburg Address, the 16th president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln, captured the all important purpose of his revolutionary government. He began,

 

"For score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 'that all men are created equal.'"
 

And, he continued,

"Now we are engaged in the great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure..." 
 

Well, in the same patriotic letter and spirit, South Africa is that nation. We are a nation conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it".

Any thing that flows from any source other than that proposition is a crime against humanity, anywhere and everywhere. And the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a tribunal that exists for such crimes as classified in this category.

And, because the "rainbow nation" must persist--must live through all time--South Africa's youth have their task cut out for them. They needs must campaign for the "free, compulsory, universal, and equal" education like the Kliptown Charter promises. And if all fails, they will have to enlist the services of the ICC.