Obama taps into our battle cry for a born-free generation

By Andile Dube

“I’m going to see Michelle. I’m going to see Michelle.” I had to motivate my frosty mind as I dragged myself out of bed before dawn on June for the dark and chilly drive to the Regina Mundi Church in Soweto to see the first lady speak. This was not an opportunity I was going to miss, no matter how hard the Highveld winter was conspiring against us.

Celebrities don’t move me. I have met other first ladies, but the experience was hardly life changing. And yet, in the presence of Michelle Obama, I was like a hysterical 10-year-old at a Miley Cyrus concert. I was moved.

There I was, sitting in the same church as one of the world’s most influential woman, utterly convinced that she “gets” me, that she was speaking to me specifically and that she knows my work inside-out. There was not a fake note in her entire address. There was nothing preachy or haughty, just a thorough authenticity and a realness that enthralled me.

My day job with the New loveLife Trust is mending the fabric of South African society for young people as part of loveLife’s holistic approach to fighting HIV. Too many teenagers grow up in an atmosphere of hopelessness and defeat. They see last year’s matriculants languishing at home and on street corners and wonder why they should bother trying to be better. They see their elders working themselves into early graves for minimum wage. They see the rich getting richer and the poor getting old. The pressure on them is to acquiesce, to give up, to just make do, and that’s where the risk-tolerant behaviour that drives new HIV infections in South Africa takes hold. And that’s what we’re trying to fight as an organisation often misunderstood.

The seeds of a new social reality lie in the hearts and minds of our nation’s youth. On average, learners in school are more positive, more optimistic, and therefore far more likely to eschew risk than their counterparts who have dropped out of school.

When you participate, as I frequently do with the loveLife groundBREAKERs and mpintshis, in activities and events in the most marginalised communities of our country, the hope and energy is palpable. In my view, it is no exaggeration to say that the future prosperity of South Africa depends on how we harness the energy, enthusiasm and potential of our country’s youth. And it could go either way.

It would be disingenuous to pretend that all you need is a positive attitude and then the poverty, marginalisation, inequality and injustice will all just magically melt away. That is nonsense. What we focus on is young people working, wherever they are, as a generation of leaders, inch by inch, towards a better future.

We have a word for what we’re trying to do with the youth of our country — nakanjani. It means “no matter what”. It is a statement of defiance. Nakanjani says: I am going to make my move, I am going to keep on striving, I am going to build a better community and a better country no matter what you throw in my way, in the face of your disrespect, your disbelief, your dislike. Nakanjani is the battle cry of the born-free generation … and the theme of loveLife’s new campaign.

So there I was in Regina Mundi listening to Graca Machel telling me I don’t need to sacrifice my motherhood, wifehood, views, my feminism or career to be a leader of the 21st century and I think to myself yes, nakanjani!

And I began to feel almost overwhelmed as I sat in that church, the church where freedom was made, being challenged to fight for a new kind of freedom.

“It is because of the students of 1976 that so many of these young women leaders can now pursue their dreams,” said Mrs Obama. “It is because of them that I stand before you as first lady of the United States of America.” She reminded us that we are the “heirs of that blood, sweat, sacrifice and love”.

The youth of yesteryear fought against apartheid but there are still so many causes worth sacrificing for. I get such nonsensical cynicism from my middle-class peers who think that the youth of South Africa have nothing to fight for. If my sister from the US gets it, why don’t they?

Obama challenged us to be “the generation that ends HIV/Aids in our lifetime, the generation that fights not just the disease, but the stigma of the disease, the generation that teaches the world that HIV is fully preventable and treatable and should never be a source of shame, the generation that fights woman abuse, the generation that assists young women to take their rightful place in society”.

I just screamed out “NAKANJANI!”

Dr Andile Dube is director for youth programmes at the New loveLife Trust — SA’s largest HIV-prevention initiative for youth.