In 1989 and 1994, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela advanced and popularised the utopia of building a rainbow nation. The idea was to bring together all people of South Africa, in all their diversity, to work towards a new, common, non-racial and equal society. Indeed, the vision of these two struggle heroes was codified and became a core value of South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Using the case of the Federation of South African Trade Unions (Fosatu) active in the period 1979-1985, this article demonstrates that the notion of the rainbow nation has a long history predating the Tutu and Mandela moments. Among other objectives, Fosatu sought to create a just, fair, non-racial and apolitical society, albeit led by workers. This article, therefore, argues that rather than seeing Fosatu as an orthodox trade union underpinned by a "workerist" tradition and "economism" as is advanced in the existing literature, it can also be seen as an antecedent and advocate of a free society, creating and expanding the "public sphere" and realm of freedom and democracy in South Africa during apartheid. In emphasising worker control or giving power to members of a union, Fosatu sowed the seeds of participatory democracy that came to characterise South Africa, epitomised by a post-1994 parliamentary democracy. In this way, Fosatu foreshadowed the aspirations of the new, just and fair South Africa envisioned by Tutu and Mandela. Broadly speaking, the story of Fosatu's aspirations and struggles has a wider and comparative significance in understanding the makings and role of civil society in the democratic struggle from a global south perspective. This article relies on narratives, correspondence and debates extracted from Fosatu papers and archives.
This study looks at the uses and abuses of the National Youth Service (NYS) as a vehicle to attain national economic and social development for the youth in Zimbabwe. started in 2001, the NYS has in its short life span attracted both admirers and enemies both locally and externally. Whilst proponents of the NYS argue that it is the best way to integrate the youth fully in all aspects of the economy, in line with the dictates of the African Youth Charter, enemies have argued that the NYS has been nothing but an attempt to sacrifice developmental aspirations on the altar of political expediency. This study looks at the politics surrounding the implementation of the African Youth Charter, particularly article 15, which states that member states should institute NYS programmes to engender community participation and skills development for entry into the labour market. This paper asserts that the NYS in Zimbabwe was implemented before the adoption of the African Youth Charter in 2006 and that this has raised concern among the youth that no attempts have been made to harmonise the two. As a result, instances of the NYS being abused for partisan ends have been rife, leading to calls to rebrand the NYS in line with the provisions of the youth charter. Therefore, besides the issue of perception, this paper argues that lack of resources and discord within the unity government led to the failure by the government to fully implement the African Youth Charter in the Zimbabwean context.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.