It would be illuminating to know the percentage of voters in recent general elections across Africa who were first-time voters aged between 18 and 25. How well have we tapped this generation’s optimism and energy into political participation? The governance systems we ascribe to shape much of our individual outcomes, and we must participate meaningfully in fostering those systems. Indeed, political participation is foundational for democracy.
This generation is often typecast as passive and trifling. Rather than yield space for youthful talent, the establishment characteristically maligns them – the faceless many who juggle college with laborious jobs, cultivating skills of the future of their discipline; trailblazing talents who dazzle on and offstage, live off their talent and pave way for the next generation of talents through mentorship, and countless others whose accomplishments exemplify grit and determination.
The dilemma with the mischaracterization of the youth in public discourse is that it has helped confine them to the peripheries of power while preserving the status quo; keeping the same old guard in power sans new ideas and perspectives that churn new solutions and help plug the gaps that have held back our systems and institutions for decades. ‘Education is the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world,’ Nelson Mandela. In Kenya, education sector policy wins such as free Primary education mean only so much as tertiary and university education have slipped out of reach for many Kenyan youth under the current university education funding model, the burden for tuition fees is disproportionately borne by students as opposed to government as before; the outlook for many youth and the future of the workforce looks evermore uncertain.
Many young people have limited themselves by conforming to a prejudiced low expectation of their citizenship engagement. When the youth fail to assert their voice in national discourse and agenda-setting, development is put at further risk. A system in which the youth are confined to the peripheries really is rigged against itself. The entire nation, not just the youth, are the big losers.
Time and time again, we have fallen into the trap of waiting for ‘political season’ to assume our power – the ‘vote’, and erroneously believe that we relinquish this power once we cast the ballot for our preferred candidates. But what happens during their term of office? In the wake of each polarizing election – as they have unfortunately, typically been, there is a unique opportunity to all come to the table with our divergent views; sift through the sentimentality, establish mutual goals and then make compelling submissions to officeholders. This calls for structured platforms of engagement amongst us with formal resolutions that are formally submitted to elected office bearers for review, adoption and implementation. In this manner, we will not only push for redress on the issues affecting us most but we will also recognize that we can come to the table with our distinctive perspectives and push through those and work together.
Citizens, even without holding political office, are endowed with much power. These include participation in legislative and policy-making processes. In Kenya, for instance, citizens’ access and participation in legislative and policy-making processes is entrenched in the Constitution of Kenya 2010, article 118; and the right to petition parliament to enact, repeal or amend legislation (119). The premise of this is that citizens are alternately stakeholders, experts and professionals across diverse fields, whereas lawmakers do not have specialization in all the fields for which they legislate, taking into account the expansiveness of the law continuum. They are therefore reliant on expert input from stakeholder and public engagement to create responsive and suitably adapted laws, through a people-inclusive process.
How do we push past divisive and detractive narratives and assert youth voices on the national, regional and global stage? How do we harness our fresh ideas and perspectives to plug the perennial gaps that have encumbered our governance systems and communities? This warrants deep conversations and consensus building. It certainly will take more than looking to the older generation to prop us up – our power is within us, not outside!
