When I was on my way back in Cloverdene Road a young boy (later introduced as July) greeted me friendly in Afrikaans and asked 'My baas R5 vir 'n brood asseblief' clapping his hands together pleading.
When asked how old he is and if he is in school July responded that he is 19 years old and not in school but he has passed 'form 6', whatever it maybe, I assumed it is standard 6 or grade 8 as it is called now?
When I told him I don't give money to beggars, he asked for a job. Then I told him that he should join the club - Myself are too white, too male, too qualified and too old to be employed. I could have been nasty and told him to ask the ANC for a job but he would just waste his time. But I referred him to the DA because Mmusi Maimane constantly brag how he and his party would create jobs like no one's business.
The moral of the story is that on this Youth Day 2017, while the ANC and the DA will try to get some political mileage out of 16 June 1976, the naked reality is that there are youths like July, only speaking Afrikaans to beg for some bread money from a white man, who are worse off than before 1994 and although he has the right to vote and indeed voted last year in the municipal elections, could not better his current situation.
A variation on an old adage: 'While Zuma and his ANC are singing ABBA's "Money, Money, Money", youths like July have a bleak, bleak, bleak future'.
And you cannot blame Jan van Riebeeck for it! Or Apartheid! Or the whites!
PS: When I said my goodbyes to July I gave him half of the bread I bought, but tomorrow he will still be hungry!
Also Read This Post of Yesterday - The Lost Youth
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