http://www.blogs.dispatch.co.

za/dialogues/2011/02/01/rhodes-vc-slams-sushi-generation/

01

Rhodes VC slams sushi generation

Filed Under (education) by dawn on 01-02-2011 and tagged education, rhodes, saleem badat

Rhodes University's VC Saleem Badat Rhodes University vice-chancellor Saleem Badat lashed out at the youth this week, saying South Africa was impoverished intellectually and politically because many of them used politics as stepping stones towards eating sushi, reports Mayibongwe Maqhina. Too many of the young people who go to formal politics today are not going there for the right reasons. They simply see it (politics) as stepping stones to eat sushi, Badat said at the Dispatch Dialogue at the East London City Hall on Thursday, which was hosted in partnership with the Steve Biko Foundation and the University of Fort Hare. He was responding to a question about whether or not Steve Bikos could be identified among todays youth. It is very hard to say who are the Steve Bikos of today. The fact that we cant point to Bikos of today means we have an impoverished society intellectually and politically. Badat was hopeful that in years to come there will be youths who will emulate the black consciousness leader and South African Student Organisation (Saso) founder. My sense is that they are not to come from political formations, but the civil society, said Badat during a discussion on his new book, Black Man, You Are On Your Own which analyses the ideology, politics and organisational features of Saso. Earlier, Bikos son, Nkosinathi, had raised his concerns about the way we defined ourselves as youth.

Perhaps it is important that as we define the youth, we remember that it is not an excuse to embrace mediocrity. Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela and many of our leaders started contributing to advancing freedom in this country as young people. He also said there was a lot of work young South Africans needed to do to enrich the discourse of the country, even if they were aged 20. If Barney Pityana could do it, if Nelson Mandela could do it, so we can do it, Nkosinathi said. According to Badat, the leaders of Saso, who formed and led the black consciousness movement in the 1970s in their 20s, were incredible intellects. There was such incredible creativity withinby this generation that at 21, 22 and 23 that we have not seen subsequently, and we dont see it today at all. Today, what we see is anti-intellectualism shunning of knowledge, which is frightening, he said. He also said the generation that succeeded Biko and his contemporaries post the 1976 uprisings Badat included, did not have to do much. I dont think we compare to the Biko and Barney Pityanas and so on, he said. They were incredibly creative because they produced documents from scratch. We were simply cutting and pasting from Mayibuye, Sechaba and the African Communist, Badat said, to laughter from the audience. We are not producing any new ideas. We are good at political education and training, speaking and articulating race, class, etcetera.