Songezo Mjongile,

Delivered by Malusi Gigaba on 24th September 2020

During this, the year of our most obstinate winter that seemed to last a life?me, it seemed we had become accustomed to stopping by the side of many a grave in order to pay our last respects to many combatants, patriots and fellow midwives of the new South Africa.

Today we have assembled on this grieving piece of earth to pay our last respects to one such patriot, Songezo Mjongile that belonged to that generation of gallant youth that, on the journey from racial tyranny to independence, had ceased to fear death.

This was a generation that would occupy the unique position of being the only generation of youth that would exist during South Africa’s historical transition from white minority rule to democratic majority rule.

Their gallantry on the battlefield was legendary; this was a generation that had grown up during the most violent decade in South Africa’s history, as the system of white tyranny had entered the final period of its existence. This generation’s valour would grow as the dangers they faced also did, confronting as they did apartheid’s total strategy, surrounded on all sides by naked and brute violence.

The growing number of demands that the movement had placed on this generation reflected its growing confidence in their bravery, their commitment to freedom and their ability to execute the most daring of actions in pursuit of the noble goal of freedom.

The failure of the regime to rule the country without the employment of naked violence and its subsequent reluctant willingness to negotiate with the legitimate representatives of the oppressed, which prompted the political reforms announced by FW De Klerk in 1989 after the ousting of PW Botha, owed as much to white monopoly capital’s desire for political reforms as apartheid became not only politically unstable but also economically unsustainable, as also to the stubborn resistance of the “young lions”.

This did not make white monopoly capital and the youth allies in the quest for change in South Africa, but they would remain opposed to one another as their vision for a free and democratic South Africa remained fundamentally poles apart.

Songezo would remain eternally aware of these varying and irreconcilable differences, forever involved in the struggle to ensure the victory of the vision of his generation for total emancipation. Since the news of his untimely demise reached our unsuspecting ears, we have worn the garb of excruciating agony, struggling to come to terms with this sad reality of the sudden immolation of a precious African jewel in our midst. Songezo’s life was singularly and unconditionally dedicated to the struggle of our people for total emancipation.

He eschewed the pleasures of youth to participate in the struggle of his people for independence from white tyrannical rule. Inspired by OR Tambo’s call for the development of the all-round leadership competencies of the youth in order to prepare them for their future role at the helm of the national Democratic revolution, Songezo plunged himself headlong into students and youth struggles and organisations, both as an activist and as a leader.

He shot to national prominence as the leader of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), leading Operation Barcelona in pursuit of free and quality education, the patent result of which was the new South African Schools Act inaugurated under the democratic government.

In this regard, he was a pioneer for the new democratic system of education. His exceptional and courageous leadership of COSAS catapulted him into the national leadership of the ANCYL, resulting in his election into its national executive committee in the historic 1996 national congress.

For many years, he was a champion of youth development, which he regarded not just as a fancy title, but as a pivotal programme in pursuit of the restoration of the dignity of the black youth and breaking the cycle of poverty in black communities. It was thus under his watch as Head of Youth Development in the ANC Youth League that we spearheaded the establishment of the National Youth Commission (NYC), Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF), and the South African Youth Council (SAYC).

He would also play a vital role in forging cohesion and mediating overlapping mandates between these three organisations. When it became necessary to merge the policy formulation mandate of the Youth Commission as well as the execution mandate of the Youth Fund, he led the subsequent establishment of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) after the 2004 national congress.

He spearheaded the formulation of the first-ever National Youth Policy for the country and invested all his energy into ensuring this became widely accepted Across the political spectrum and was representative of all sections and strata of youth.

Furthermore, he also championed the establishment of provincial youth commissions as well as the local youth units at the municipal level, believing that youth development must not become a national competency treated as an abstract concept at the local level, since the youth existed not just at an abstract space known as “national”, but lived in concrete conditions at local levels under municipal governments.

However, he led us to grapple with the absence both of policy mandates as well as budgets for youth development at municipal levels, as well as lack of or varying commitment to youth development among provincial governments.

Songezo would also be pivotal in the public awareness campaigns the ANCYL led against drugs and substance abuse, racism, HIV and AIDS, popularising the ABC slogan, and campaign for youth economic participation which became a precursor to the campaign for economic freedom in our lifetime.

The campaigns he led for a quality, accessible and free education as a students’ activist and leader laid the basis for the eventual achievement of fee-free higher education. This decision liberated millions of black youth from the burden of generations of having to study under the heavy burden of debt, of having to bear on their heavily indebted shoulders the education of their younger siblings and of the unbearable black tax that still haunts much black youth to this day.

When he was elected into the ANCYL NEC in 1996, he became a part of the collective charged with taking the organisation through an exciting period of renewal and political reorientation of the ANCYL, emerging as it was from half a century of resistance to racial tyranny. The question then was what would be the new mission and role of the youth and particularly the ANCYL, in order to rebuild it into a militant and formidable instrument in pursuit of the political participation and socio-economic aspirations of the youth.

Songezo would deploy his immense intellectual prowess and charm, his affable nature and steadfastness, to help us provide answers to the intractable questions of our time.

The man we have come to honour was not merely a national patriot, but a progressive internationalist and Pan-Africanist who held resolutely to the firm conviction that Africa still had to destroy the final vestiges of colonial rule and defeat imperialism, as the only basis for unity, regeneration and social progress.

His foray into business was not merely influenced by a raw appetite for wealth, but it was out of his passion for radical change in the structure of production and ownership patterns in our country’s economy.

In joining the black industrialists’ programme, he underscored his hatred of the fact that our economy continued to reproduce colonial patterns of ownership and control and thus continued to exclude black people, which affirmed the preponderance of white-dominated monopolies and oligopolies created during white minority rule.

It bothered him that the colonial ruling class, in its racial, class and gender features, remained still dominant during the post-apartheid era, with little meaningful effort to change this situation.

He was thus determined that we should transform the patterns of ownership, control and management of our economy, and reverse the trend of deindustrialization which had dogged our economy since the advent of democracy. To overturn this reality, he believed that we had to unite the ANC and black people in general in pursuit of total emancipation.

He yearned at all times for maximum unity within our ranks, anchored on a programme of ac?on to reverse the legacy of dispossession, the super-exploitation of black workers and socio-economic marginalisation and disempowerment of the black majority.

We owe it to him to rebuild and renew the ANCYL, an organisation to which he dedicated over a decade of his young life, not as an instrument in the hands of factions in pursuit of their ignoble objectives, but as a potent force for revolutionary change in society.

We must expedite the work to return the ANCYL in the hands of the youth, and continue to strengthen the ideological and political consciousness of the youth so that they free themselves of factions and become a revolutionary force for radical change. Today, as we assemble like this, we are awfully aware of the awful prospect of facing up to these struggles without our leader who unified us against all beliefs and circles.

Yet, we are determined that his spirit will continue to guide us in pursuit of these goals to which he single-mindedly believed. He set us a compelling example that shall see us through our most difficult days ahead.

Rest in peace, our dearest and cherished brother!

It is well!

“He eschewed the pleasures of youth to participate in the struggle of his people for independence from white tyrannical rule.”